The ups and down in the life of Taniyama Mai
by xiaoj
Summary: Mai is not what she seems to be, she have a secret that she's been guarding for quite some time now. And that secret has nothing to do with the dream Naru that she sees in her dream all the time, although this is another secret of hers. What happens when a new case bring them closer to the secret Mai is keeping from their knowledge? What happen then? Eventual NaruxMai, Rated T Now!
1. Chapter 1 - Case of Yukimura Clan

A/N: Plot bunnies won't leave me alone, so this story emerges. This is my first attempt at Ghost Hunt Fic.

Title: The Ups and Down in the Life of Taniyama Mai

Pairing: NaruxMai

Summary: Mai is not as ordinary as she appeared to be – she has a secret and a latest case taken by the SPR forces her to lay it out in the open. Follow her as she and the SPR gang carried on in their ghost hunting adventures… Eventual NaruMai.

Disclaimer: **Ghost Hunt is not mine, copyright belonged to Fuyumi Ono.**

Chapter 1 – Case 1: The case of the Yukimura clan

Shibuya Psychic Research Centre is a company that was situated in the heart of the Tokyo City, well-known for it's' investigation of supernatural and paranormal activities. It has been around for about two years and over these periods of time - they had already solved several cases creating a name for themselves in the current society.

Taniyama Mai, an eighteen year old teenage girl was working part-time for the said company. The brunette has been working for SPR over the past one and a half year, ever since SPR first case over at her high school. The reason behind Mai taking up a permanent part-time position in the company was kind of peculiar, she had started helping out the SPR then when the gang was investigating the old building of her high school.

At that point of time, one could say that Mai had no choice but to assist them out for it had been due to her carelessness that resulted in the injury of her narcissist boss only assistant - Koujo Lin, back then. Not to mention breaking some cameras of the SPR property in the midst of doing so, and therefore as a form of so-called compensation act that narcissistic boss of hers had her trapped with no way out of the arrangement to assist them all in the investigation process.

She had thought following the end of the investigation at her school, she would no longer had anything to do with the SPR any more. However, she was wrong – seems like Shibuya Kazuya, the boss of the SPR whom Mai always referred to as 'Naru' because he was so narcissistic called up her school and offered her a part-time position in their company. Seeing as she does have the intention of looking around for some part-time jobs at that point of time, Mai only took a minute to consider things over before giving the former a confirmation response to the job offer. Basically, that was how Mai had landed herself the part-time assistant position with the SPR.

Her job entails namely filing, sorting of documents, keeping stock of pantry items, attending to calls and clients and other miscellaneous duties assigned from time to time. Nothing too challenging, in fact it's quite a routine job – which somehow would bore her out of her mind. However, once a case came by – not only will things gets interesting, it also gets dangerous at some point of time. For instances, the Urado case that involved the ex-prime minister of Japan – that particular case still gives Mai creeps whenever it came into her mind.

The train operator announcement of approaching Shibuya station draw the brunette out from her thoughts, as she glances down at her watch to look at the time shown on it. Almost immediately, Mai had to bite the inside of her cheeks to prevent herself from cursing aloud. Apparently, she was running late again – no excuses would be considered well enough for her boss, Mai believed. Naru would definitely be mad at her for being late again, thankfully this was the start of a new week if not she is willing to bet against the fact that her pay would be dock again for being late for work.

"Mai, you're late!" As expected, this was the first thing Mai heard upon entering the front office door of SPR when she finally arrived for work.

"Sorry, I was held up. In class..." Mai added as an afterthought, when she realized Naru is still waiting for her reason for being late.

"I see, and that fact alone had just proved to show that you're indeed an idiot." Naru said, as he smirked at the brunette.

"Argh! How many times must I emphasized, that I am not an idiot!" Mai threw a sharp retort back at the said narcissist, as her face turn red from anger and indignation.

"Getting yourself riled up just because of a remark from me, isn't that action alone considered idiotic?" Naru threw back at Mai before turning on his heels to enter his private office, leaving the girl to stare after him in disbelief.

"Ah! What a jerk!" Mai muttered under her breath, as she flopped herself down at her usual seat – which happened to be situated in the front office area, and acting as a receptionist to the office as well.

"Mai, where's my afternoon tea?"

"Grr! Damn that narcissist, can't he just give me a moment to settle down before asking for his tea?! "Mai muttered aloud in frustration, as she stalked towards the small kitchen area towards the back of the SPR office and start preparing the tea which Naru had requested for.

Making tea in the office kitchen had become such a routine task for Mai that she does not even bother to look around for the necessary utensils and simply just grab the tea-kettle which she usually used from the cabinet shelves and start filling it up with water then placing it down on the stove to boil. She was about to reach for the usual pack of black tea that was placed on the counter, before coming down to a realization that the black tea was finished up last night and instantly groaned aloud. Black tea just happened to be a favorite for Naru, and she had obviously forgotten to get a new pack yesterday when she came in for work.

"… Well, I guess he'll just have to settle for Ceylon today. "Mai mumbled to herself, while making a mental note to get some black tea later on in the day – after work perhaps, so she wouldn't forgot to get it done tomorrow.

The whistling sound from the tea-kettle on the stove alerted Mai on the fact that the water is now fully boiled and ready for use. Carefully, Mai opened up the can of Ceylon tea leaves and scoop out two teaspoon dropping them into the teapot before proceeding to pour the boiling hot water into the pot. She waited for a few minutes, for the tea leaves to soak it fully and for the fragrance of the tea to settle. Then she reached for three cups from the cabinet, and pours the freshly brewed tea into the cups respectively. Once accomplished, Mai grabbed the tray from the side of the counter and balance the three cups of tea on it.

Exiting from the kitchen, she first headed towards Lin's office before heading for Naru. Knocking twice on the door of Lin's office before poking her head into the door way, Mai greeted the former politely.

"Good afternoon, Lin-san. Here's a cup of tea for you, we kind of ran out of black tea so I hope you don't mind having Ceylon today." Mai said as she placed the cup of tea down on the desk of the elder man.

"Good afternoon, Taniyama-san. Ceylon is fine." Lin responded, nodding in acknowledgement as Mai set the cup down in front of him.

With that done, Mai headed out of the room and stopped by briefly at her own desk – placing a cup of tea that she had poured for herself on her own desk. She took the remaining cup of tea towards Naru's office, knocking twice as usual – she waited for the prompt for her to go in before opening the door.

"I certainly hoped you don't mind Ceylon, because we ran out on black tea. I was going to get some today, but because I'm already late I didn't have the time to drop by the store to make any purchase. I'll be sure to drop by the supermarket to get it later on though, so for today – just make do with what we have on hand." Mai explained herself as she placed the cup of Ceylon down on the desk, before stepping back to wait.

Naru had remained stone and silent for a while, before responding. "Be sure to get a receipt for the purchase later, if not you can jolly well forget about getting a reimbursement from the company."

The statement had shocked Mai greatly, for she had been so certain that there would not be any response from Naru's part. Ever since the first day Mai started working for him, Naru had never expressed his appreciation of her tea-making duties by saying a simple term such as 'Please' or 'Thank You'. Even at times, when she makes purchases for the office – the idea of paying her back through the reimbursement act had never did once occurred before.

"Are you really going to reimburse me for the purchases, this time around?" Mai questioned, still finding it hard to believe.

"Well, you are always yapping on the fact that its' unfair not to pay you back for the purchases made on office behalf – isn't that so? "

"Yes, I did say that before – but I didn't think you would agree…"

"Previously, you're still doing compensation for the camera that you'd broken before. Now though, that compensation amount has officially being offset. Therefore, from now onwards – claims could be made through proper procedures with the support of relevant receipts and documents." Naru replied, placing extra emphasis on the part that says proper procedures and relevant receipts.

"Oh… Okay." Mai responded dumbly, and scurried out from the office in a hurry upon the questioning look being directed her way by Naru.

Heading back to her desk, Mai quickly put together a list of supplies that she needs to get for the office usage. The term proper procedure to apply for reimbursement would mean that any cash that is being reimbursed out to her would need to be fully recorded, either input into the system or written clearly down on paper – right? Mai asked herself, nodding to herself as she think back on her accounting class contents.

Having an idea in mind on the recording procedure, Mai rumbled through her backpack and pulled out an unused notebook from within and labeled it down as 'Office Expenses Book'. She has one of her own expenses book, mainly used for the recording of her daily spending. Being an orphan living alone in a rented apartment unit, meant having to plan her allowance and budget all the time. Aside from that, she will need to set aside a certain sum of money to be saved in the bank every month as well – and so far, that is the reason why she remained on SPR for these long.

Otherwise, with that narcissistic attitude received from Naru all the time – combined with the cold treatment received from Lin when she first started working for SPR, added on to the snide remarks coming from one Hara Masako – a fellow co-worker of SPR; Mai would have quitted long ago if it was not for the fact that SPR pay her well. In fact, the amount of money she was being paid every month while working for SPR – whether does it involves having a case or not, the payment is still doubled the rate from her previous part-time job at some retail outlets doing promotion sales. Since now Naru is offering to reimburse her back the amount of money spend on office supplies, she could afford to save more in the bank or to pamper herself in relations to getting herself some new attires or sorts. This idea itself is enough to make Mai feel good for the rest of the day, and so when the door to the front office opened up and bring them a new potential client. Mai's enthusiasm in serving the customer was totally unfazed and completely cheerful, despite the fact that the client was in fact someone she doesn't like to deal with on personal scale.

"This is the Shibuya Psychic Research Centre, isn't it?" The man that entered the office questioned, without glancing towards Mai but merely scanned the surroundings as if trying to see if the office is up to his standard of associating.

Mai takes in a deep breath, telling herself to treat the person in front as any other customer and try to ignore his aristocrat way of doing things as she greeted the man – professionally.

"Yes, this is the SPR. How may I assist you, sir?"

"Huh? Oh, its' you … What are you doing here, if I may ask?" The man took one look in Mai's direction, before questioning snidely.

"I'm working here as a part-time assistant to the owner of this company. Now, can I ask about your reason for coming by?" Mai responded with a question of her own, she highly doubted the former was here to ask about her welfare.

"Yes, I've heard from others that this company deals with supernatural phenomena situation – correct?" There was a skepticism lying underneath the tone of speech that he had choose to adopt while speaking with Mai, and it annoyed the hell out of her.

"If you are feeling skeptical about it all, perhaps you should just leave. Honestly, I don't understand just what can be so unfathomable for you to resort to coming down here and seek assistance. After all, you do have some capable beings at your beck and call – isn't that so?" Mai commented, as she eyed the man in his late forties with equal skepticism.

"I would have solved this if I could do it that easily. " This was all Mai had been able to get out from him, before Lin appeared asking if there was a client here to see them with a case.

"…Well then, Lin-san – this is Yukimura Mitsuo. He's here to bring us our latest case; I'll go and get Naru." Mai said as she excused herself from her current company, while she left for the direction towards Naru's office.

"Naru, there's a client outside waiting to speak to you." Mai stated plainly as she stuck her head through the doorway of Naru's office, before bustling off towards the kitchen to get the client some tea.

"I'm Shibuya Kazuya, the president for SPR. How may I assist you, Mr. Yukimura?" Mai distinctively heard Naru greeted the client in his usual manner, while she busied herself with the task of preparing the client's tea.

"Pardon my intrusion, but here's the tea for the client" Mai said objectively, as she placed the cup of tea in front of the client's reach.

"Honestly, Ceylon? I would have thought you had enough sense to serve your clients top rated Earl Grey." Yukimura Mitsuo muttered under his breath as he took a sip from the teacup that was meant for his consumption.

"…" Mai pressed her lips tightly in annoyance, and Naru started in on the reason behind Yukimura Mitsuo's visit – drawing the said man into a discussion of the so-called case. Somehow somewhere along the line, Lin must have picked up on Mai's agitation and so does Naru. The duo shared a look among them outside Mai's vision range before Lin approached Mai with a list of items that need to be purchase from the nearby stores sending her off on an errand trip. For that, Mai was immensely grateful if not Mai feared she might ended up snapping at that man going by the name of Yukimura Mitsuo.

"Well, we would be requiring 3 rooms in total. Two bedrooms to be shared among our members and one room for our equipments to be used as a base, kindly have them ready by tomorrow evening. That will be all, we shall see you tomorrow evening then – Mr. Yukimura. "

Mai returned to the office just in time to hear Naru making his usual announcement of sealing a deal with the client, Mai wisely kept her mouth shut as Yukimura Mitsuo passes her by with a smug expression on his face. Lin and Naru watched on in silence as Mai's face took a turn for a deeper shade of red, probably from anger due to the client's behavior before going into a ranting session.

"Naru, why the heck are we even considered taking on his case?!" Mai wasted no time in pressing on for an answer from the stoic teen, she knew for a fact that Yukimura Mitsuo's attitude would no doubt irked the stoic teen as well – so why bother with his case?

"Two reasons, first of all – we have not been on a case for the past few months so we have no reasons to be turning down a potential business deal. Secondly, the case sounds rather interesting to me so I felt the need to check things out." Naru eventually said, while Mai took several deep breaths to recompose her thoughts before stalking off to start calling up the rest of the SPR team members to gather for a pre-investigation meeting for tomorrow morning.

Date edited: 7/2/2013

P.S: Amended a little mistake in the chapter, should be one and a half year, not two ... sorry for the mistake.


	2. Chapter 2 - Case of Yukimura Clan

A/N: Plot bunnies won't leave me alone, so this story emerges. This is my first attempt at Ghost Hunt Fic.

Title: The Ups and Down in the Life of Taniyama Mai

Pairing: NaruxMai

Summary: Mai is not as ordinary as she appeared to be – she has a secret and a latest case taken by the SPR forces her to lay it out in the open. Follow her as she and the SPR gang carried on in their ghost hunting adventures… Eventual NaruMai.

Disclaimer: **Ghost Hunt is not mine, copyright belonged to Fuyumi Ono.**

Chapter 2 – Case 1: The case of Yukimura Clan, Part 2

_Mai walked down the deserted halls alone, occasionally glancing over her shoulders to check for signs of approaches. She had no idea why she was so paranoid of the surrounding area, but she knew she was worrying about something or was it someone finding her down here in this particular corridor. The reason behind her unfounded fear was unknown; a squeak sounded from behind the suit of armour that stands by one side of the corridor hallways caused Mai to startle with a jump. _

_Trying to tell herself desperately that there was nothing so terrifying down here, Mai continue on her way. She had been about to turn into the next corner when she heard it, the sound of a demented laughter coming from directly behind her. _

"_Run" her inner voice told her to do so, an__d she choose to obey the voice of her inner self by running forth, not daring to look back at whatever that was behind her. Sighting a door towards the end of the corridor, Mai made a mad dash for the room. Somehow something in her gut is telling her that whomever, and whatever that was chasing after her would never dared to enter through that particular door. _

_Yanking the door open with all her strength, Mai tore through the doorway as though her life depended on it. Heaving a sigh of relief, as she leaned her body against the now closed door separating her and whichever it is on the other side of the door – Mai found herself sliding down to a sitting position as her body strength that kept her standing finally depleted from her. _

_She could feel the swirling of the surrounding in her sight, and knew then the dream was coming to an end. Glad for the chance to escape from this particular nightmare, Mai welcomed the familiar feel of the darkness to close in and consume her. _

Mai sprang upright in bed, her chest heaving and gasping for air. A nightmare and she have not even gotten to the new case investigation site yet. Chancing a glance towards the side of her bedroom, she caught sight of the green numerical figures on her digital alarm clock situated on her bedside table. It was only 5 a.m. in the morning, and somehow after that nightmare she had no inclinations to go back to bed anytime soon.

An uneasy feeling settled in her as she thought about the new case that SPR has taken up, it was too late to back out from the deal now. All she could hope now was that whatever the case was about it has nothing to do with that dream of hers from before. Yet, she knew that would be just wishful thinking on her part – because whatever that dream of hers entails it would sure be related to the case, in one way or another.

'I knew it was bad news when that man appeared in the office yesterday afternoon! Whatever problems that he had had and ended up with problems resolving it by his own means can't be anything trivial … I swear if this particular case he had came forth to present the SPR with has anything to do with that particular estate in Okinawa – he will be having hell from me by the end of it all!' Mai fumed silently to herself, the dream that woke her up from before did nothing to calm her jittery nerves pertaining to the impending new case that the SPR is going to be off investigating.

Unable to fall back asleep, Mai decided to start getting herself ready for the day ahead. Taking her time as she entered the bathroom for her morning routine, she took a quick shower before proceeding to do a last minute check on the things which she had already packed for the investigation trip that was to come later on in the day.

Naru had told her to pack for one week, and judging from her usual way of doing things she had packed enough to last for 2 weeks. Although, she had hoped that the case can be wrapped up in a week's time – not because she was worrying about missing out on more classes in school but because she had a bad feeling of it all, pertaining to this particular case.

After Mai had doubled and tripled check her packed overnight duffle bag, her eyes flickered to the locked cabinet of her bedside table. With hesitancy apparent in her steps, Mai shuffled over to the said cabinet and pulled out a long wooden box from within.

The wooden box looks old, and it should be – Mai had first gotten it when she was eleven years old. About seven years has passes by since then, but only a mere two years had gone by since Mai stopped using whatever that was being kept in that box of hers – altogether. Flipping the box open, inside laid two long stick-like items – one was obviously a pointer or sort whereas the other is just a plain wooden stick.

You see, Mai has a deeply guarded secret against many – even away from the knowledge of the SPR. The thing is Mai used to be a witch, you know the kind of witch featured in the novel series of Harry Potter? Only, her kind of witch is more modern and could easily be camouflaged as a normal being.

The school where she had began her education as a witch was nothing like the castle in Harry Potter, in fact, it was the complete opposite. A very modern building situated in the heart of the city of New York, USA is where Mai had been for a period of 5 years before returning to Japan. However, the reason behind her return so abruptly and the story pertaining to her withdrawal from the school is just another story for another time.

Going back to the topic at hand, Mai glances down at the two items that laid within the wooden box with uncertainty while she pondered over the necessity to bring her wand along for this particular case.

The eleven inches long and dull looking wooden stick in the box was her rarely used wand, and the pointer pen lying down next to the wand was her camouflaged device – the cap to the pointer tip could be unscrewed to fit the wand in. Exactly like how Lucius Malfoy hides his wand in his cane – Mai's pointer work in the same manner.

"Looks like I'm going to have to require your assistance again – after so long, buddy." Mai murmured to her-self as she fingered the feel of her wand using her sense of touch.

Over the past 2 years since Mai had came to work for SPR, she had been keeping her heritage of being a witch against everyone on the team. The reasons behind why Mai had been keeping this fact a secret from everyone on the team, she wasn't too sure of it her-self.

What she does know is – if this particular new case of the SPR has anything to do with the estate under the name of Yukimura and being situated in Okinawa itself. Her secret might have come for the time to be out in the open, and revealed to the SPR members whom Mai had grown accustomed to looking upon as her newly found family members or sort.

Shaking her head to rid herself of unwanted thoughts, Mai turned her attention back to her task at hand. Taking the pointer out from the box, Mai worked to unscrew the tip point of the pointer and preceded on to insert the wooden stick that she had otherwise referred to as her wand before screwing back the tip to the pointer pen back on. Mai allowed a minute for her seldom used wand to renew itself in the feel of her hands before doing a quick wave of it in the air.

Green and blue sparks appeared in the areas where she had waved her wand about, Mai nodded – satisfied that her wand had yet to malfunction despite being out of touch with the reality world for a period of two years. Closing her eyes momentarily, Mai mentally prepared for her-self to expect the worst as she headed for the office.

Just yesterday evening, following the end of Naru's announcement that they would be taking on the case presented by their latest client – Yukimura Mitsuo; Mai had literally blown up twice. Once, when Naru agreed to take on the case – of course Mai had waited until Yukimura Mitsuo was out from earshot before blowing up.

The second time had been when she heard of the location for the case site being in Okinawa but luckily she had enough sense in her to vent her frustration by slamming the door of the front office closed instead of allowing her rarely used magic go haywire on her and risk breaking any of the window panes or light bulbs in her emotionally stressed out stage. It would do no good to the situation if that was what happened back then, Mai had no qualms about slipping up on her secret and cover at that point of time or worst, to have Naru or Lin pondering about the possibility of her having PK powers like Naru, he did.

Heaven forbids, when the uncontrollable magic go haywire and went fizzling out from her body – it does have a tendency to make things shake and break by their own accord. That had an eerily similarity to what Naru's PK powers would do, when being in an emotional outrage. Then again, that was all it has for the similarity between having PK and having magic in the body because no matter how hard Mai were to try bending a spoon with just sheer will power of the mind – it will never work because magic does not works in that manner. Uncontrollable fury radiating off one's body that caused untamed and accidental magic to flare out may have caused items to shake and break, but Mai can never control what these magic choose to act upon – and something as trivial as bending a spoon with the accidental magic was not in its league.

When Mai first arrived at the SPR office, the inside was still dark – a quick glance down at her wrist watch told her that the time now is 8:00 a.m. Funny to think that she was actually the early one to arrive, since usually the earliest to reach the office would be Naru and Lin whereas Mai, on the other hand, is usually the one that came into the office at the latest possible hour.

Deciding to start off by getting some of the items ready, Mai set down to work right away. She had been in the midst of getting ready the retort stand for the cameras that they will need when Lin and Naru happened to stroll into the office.

"Taniyama-san, you are early today." Lin had commented, after Naru's eyes widen significantly upon the sight that met them. The sight of Taniyama Mai being early for once, and is actually bustling around in the office getting the cameras and retort stands ready instead of making and brewing tea.

"Ah… I kind of woke up early today, and thought to head down to the office earlier …" Mai responded, not really sure if Lin's words had meant to be a question for her or not.

"Well, if only you could manage to wake up early every time we have a case – that would make everything played out right." Naru interjected then, in his usual cool and unfazed manner causing Mai to shoots him a look of annoyance when he finished.

"Excuse me! What was that again?" Mai gritted out in annoyance, and for a while she thought of ranting off again but thought better of it at the last possible minute and changes her lines instead. She had refuses to provide Lin and Naru with a reason behind her upsetting mood yesterday evening pertaining to the narcissist's decision to take on the Yukimura's case and she's not going to let them in on the reason now either.

"I believed you heard me right the first time I said it." Naru retorted, but was greatly disappointed when Mai settled for a total ignoring of his words from then onwards.

The trio worked in silence as they waited for the rest of the SPR group members to arrive and assemble as a team.

"Good morning, Naru-bou!" The ex-monk of Mt. Koya greeted before he did his usual task of squishing Mai with his 'hug'.

"Pardon me, but what's it with you and your tendency to squish the air out of me while greeting Naru?" Mai asked, as she tried to gasp for air while being squashed in that big bear hug of Takigawa Houshou, otherwise known to them as 'Bou-san'.

"Why, are you jealous for the lack of attention being showered upon you – my girl?" The monk grinned as he tightened his hold on Mai, cutting off her already lacking oxygen in the midst of doing so.

"You imbecile fool, let go of her already!" Ayako's voice was heard as she uses her purse to hit the monk heavily on his head.

"Aw! What the hell are you doing that for?" The monk protested as he let go of Mai reluctantly while Mai took the chance to refill her lungs with all the lacking air that she had needed from before.

"Stopping you from suffocating her, that's what I'm doing!" Matsuzaki Ayako, a self-claimed shrine maiden whom never did have proper training of a miko as she originated from a line of famous doctors – responded.

"Hey! I was not suffocating her; I'm only giving her a hug."

"Idiot, if you'd taken a look at her face you should be able to tell that your hug is on the verge of cutting off her supply of oxygen." Ayako scolded the monk in exasperation.

"If the two of you are just going to stand around and argue whole day, do it somewhere else and try not to disrupt our preparation work while doing so." Naru's emotionless voice was heard as he threw a death glare towards the duo's position, successfully in getting them to settle back down in silence.

"Good morning, Shibuya-san, Lin-san and Taniyama-san." The next person to arrive was John Brown, a priest from England but of Australian descent whom was also a resident exorcist from their group.

"Ah, good morning to you too… John." Mai greeted back with a mask of her usual bright smile, while Lin and Naru merely nodded back to the blond with nods of acknowledgement.

The last person to come strolling into the office was a kimono clad girl, about the same age of Mai – a well known medium to the public, going by the name of Hara Masako. Upon the sight of Mai already in the room, the medium appeared to be stunned for a moment before collecting herself and greeted the members in the room with her usual manners.

"Alright, since everyone is here already so do start with the task of loading the equipments onto the van parked downstairs." Naru commanded, and everybody immediately sprung into actions saved for the medium that claimed her weak in strength and thus would not be able to help with the task.

During the whole procedure of loading the van with equipments, Mai never did once let go of her duffle bag. She was nervous, but she refuses to let her anxiety get to her. The Yukimura family had quite a number of estates in the prefecture area of Okinawa but there has been only one that Mai detested with a passion.

Reason being – that estate give her a bad feeling for one, and the illness that took the life of her mother away was just a cover story given out to the general public. The truth is – her mother had been drained off too much of the magical powers during the short period of stay in that estate, and simply just cannot sustain any longer. The reason behind her mother's visit to that particular estate was unknown, but Mai could only guessed. After all, Yukimura Mitsuo did call their home up – three days in prior to her mother's visit to Okinawa.

From then on, Mai had detested Yukimura Mitsuo with a passion – and the former aristocrat way of doing things certainly did not helped things much. Mai hated the way the man always looked at her, just because her father – Taniyama Yuuto, was not one born of equal status to the Yukimura. If it was not for the fact that it was Yukimura Hisashi instead of Yukimura Mitsuo being in charge as the head of the family clan, Mai was willing to bet that her mother would be carted off and married to someone else instead. The more Mai pondered about Yukimura Mitsuo, the angrier she felt in her.

"Mai, if you are done dallying; could you hurry yourself up and get on the van?" Naru's annoyed tone sounded from the inside of the van, jolting the said brunette out from her 'walk' down the memory lane while she shot a look of annoyance towards the narcissist before heading for the SPR van.

"Wow, no comments on his attitude for today?" The monk mused aloud, when Mai simply just trudged towards the van in silence – not showing any outward signs of displeasure towards the narcissist teen.

Mai travelled in the company of Lin and Naru, for she was to stay aboard of the van to take care of the equipments on board the van. The rest of the group members, however, would be travelling to the client's place in the monk's car. Seeing as both her companions were not one with a lot of words, the whole journey was engulfed in silence.

Usually Mai would be falling asleep promptly when the van started on its journey, but not today. Sleep did not managed to claim the cheerful brunette, if anything – the need or the urge to sleep while travelling had forsaken her completely. Throughout the journey, Mai had been looking out at the windows of the van taking in all the scenery that pass them by while trying to tell for sure which estate is the one they are heading for.

Cold fear gripped Mai's stomach as she found the van pulling up to a stop in front of a western style building that loomed ahead of them.

'Great… just bloody great – the exact same building that I was hoping not to have come at all, seems like Yukimura Mitsuo was too confident of himself and now he decided that whatever it was residing in here could not be solved with a mere wave of a magic wand and deemed it necessary to bring in outside help – eh? Doesn't he know that he's putting the others including his own family members in dangers while doing so?! I would have thought following the demise of Yukimura Hisashi – Sanae's father, and Yukimura Maika – my mother. He would have already learnt his lessons, but unfortunately I thought wrong!' Mai thought silently while she fumed.

"Mai, get out of the van and helped us out in the unloading." Naru's ordering tone of voice successfully breaks into the thoughts of Mai, and draw her back into reality.

"I'm coming …" Mai mumbled as she stepped out of the van, making an attempt to move towards the back of the van and helped Lin in the unloading procedure.

Lin could feel the magic in the air, while his powers worked differently with those of the western side of the world. He could still recognized the powers radiating off in the surrounding air as magical wards, the wards of the house as though sensing an intruder in their compound had started to react badly to his shikigami's existence. It grew genuinely taxing for him as he tried to maintain his usual blank expression while heading to the back of the van to unload the equipments.

Taniyama Mai's sudden decision to jump into his sight caused his body to jerk into a shakily standing position caught Naru's attention – it would seem. His composure wavered for a split second and he had almost felt himself blacking out from the magic that went crazy surrounding him, when he felt the hands of Taniyama Mai holding a tight grip on him.

"Lin-san, hang in there for a while – will you?" Lin had heard Taniyama Mai murmured something like this towards him, before he felt a warm and welcoming sense of energy flooding through his senses. He had thought he heard Taniyama Mai chanting something in another language, but he wasn't sure of it. Nonetheless, that was a question meant for another time.

"Lin." Naru's voice shakes him out from his stupor mode, as he rose to his full height to regard the young man coolly.

"I'm fine, I just tripped...over a pebble." Lin responded calmly as he darted a look towards the offending piece of pebble that somehow suddenly seemed to appear by the side of his feet. His face betrayed no outward reaction while he slid a glance towards the direction of Taniyama Mai, silently willing the brunette to agree with his statement and at the same time wondered if the pebble had been her doings.

"Yes, Naru – I'm certain that Lin-san is alright. I think I jumped out from the van too abruptly and in the process accidentally kicking a pebble from my side towards him causing him to stumble. Everything is fine." That was Mai's response to Naru's questioning look, while she glances towards the stoic elder man with a 'look' of her own. Their eyes met for a split second before going back to their task at hand – that is, to unload the equipments from the van.

No words were being exchanged between them both, Lin was certain that Mai had something to do with that warm and fuzzy feeling that swept through his senses rendering the wards to welcome his entry now – but he had no idea what exactly Mai had did. On the other hand, Mai was simply glad that she had nullify the magic in the wards in time before Lin's shikigami lashes out in retaliation of their owner being attacked on the compound.

"What a big and nice house, the client must have been filthily rich to be able to live in such an exquisite house." Mai thought she heard the monk mentioned something like that, but she was not sure because her attention had been focused on elsewhere – such as trying to figure out just how on earth can the magical wards on the house be this complicated.

Magical wards are not Mai's forte area of knowledge, unlike her cousin – Yukimura Sanae. Mai's forte areas in magic are charms and defence spells, whereas Yukimura Marina – the daughter of Yukimura Mitsuo, forte area are in the fields of the dark arts. While on the subject of dark arts – this mansion absolutely reeked of it, especially the east wing of the house.

Speaking of which, she had better checked with Naru again on what exactly Yukimura Mitsuo had let them in when he came by with the case. She had after all missed the big part of it all, as Lin had sent her off for some errands upon detecting her immense dislike for the client.

The front door to the mansion had opened up then, and a nicely dressed lady had appeared with a butler in tow.

"Good afternoon, you people must be the SPR team that my husband was telling me about. Please come in, we already have the rooms that you requested for usage ready at hand. My butler – Kurokawa shall be bringing you people in and bring you people for a tour of the mansion while at it."

"You are Mrs. Yukimura, I presumed." Naru started, shaking the hand of the lady while he did so.

"Oh no… just address me as Rinka will do. It makes me feel old when you addressed me as Mrs. Yukimura." Rinka, the wife of Yukimura Mitsuo told Naru so – while the rest of the SPR team made a move to follow Kurokawa, the butler into the mansion.

"Masako, did you managed to feel anything?" Mai turned towards the medium and asked while she hide in the shadow of the SPR group.

"Yes, there's an abnormally large number of spirits lingering here in this house and mostly concentrating on the eastern part of the wing too. Among its centre is a dark and sinister spirit, the intent wasn't exactly clear to me though and she refuses to speak to me. All in all… it is still giving me a horrible feel to it." Masako responded, her kimono sleeves to her nose as per normal.

"…" Mai was solemnly quiet when she heard Masako's statement, and quite honestly she had no idea what to expect for this case. Now she was upset by her own doings back in the office yesterday, if only she could curb in her desires to snap at the man – probably she won't be this helpless now.

"Mai… stop day-dreaming and get a move on!" Naru's voice was heard from behind her, causing the brunette to snap back to reality – a quick look around she realized that she had zoned out in the midst of a tour around the house. Taking in a sharp intake of breath, Mai hurried to drag Naru with her as they catch up with the rest of the team – if she had knew they were in the hallways of the east wing she would never dared to zone out in her thoughts.

"This shall be the room for your equipments and to serve as your base." Mai heard the butler telling the rest of the members, as they come to a stop in front of a spacious room.

"Thank you, Kurokawa-san. I would appreciate if you can get the staffs ready to speak to us in another hour's time for the interview session to take place." Lin addressed the elderly butler, before the man took his leave from them all.

Mai stepped into the spacious room given to them for usage as a base and sighed aloud at the sheer irony of its all – the exact same room she seen in her dreams from before when she tore through that doorway separating the two wings of the house. Upon the thought of it, she froze – the doorway from her dream, its' missing.

Turning around immediately, she headed towards the doorway and bellowed down the hallway for the butler to come back for an explanation or sort.

"Kurokawa, where is that bloody doorway that separated the wings!" Mai bellowed, causing everyone in the room to wince at her shrill voice – this was the first time ever for them to see Mai bellowing at someone. Even when Mai argued with Naru, she only shouted or yelled at times but never to reach to a stage whereby she would bellow.

"… I apologized, but Master Mitsuo deemed the doorway to be old and a hassle and decided to do without it." Kurokawa, the butler explained in his most professional manner but only caused Mai to get even more irritated by it all.

"He tore down the doorway?! How dare he?! The doorway had a valid reason for being there and he actually dared to tear it down!? Just because he finds it too old and the design too hideous for his likings?! Why don't you just tell him to suck it down and deal with that maniac in there instead of seeking help from the outsiders when the strange disappearance of the maids started to happen?! That door was what exactly keeping the dangers away from the residents in it and he took it down?! Is he crazy or does he have a death wish on his list?!" Mai snarled her face turning beet red with anger and is giving off an aura that kills.

"Mai, what is going on here?" Naru questioned, judging from Mai's reaction – she had a very clear idea on what they are up against.

"A lunatic have it in mind to start a ritual of necromancy to bring back the dead – in specific to bring back her twin that died when they were still young. The ritual was somehow incomplete, either because it was put to a stop or that someone had sacrifice oneself for the obvious reason to deter the completion of the ritual. The ritual's first took place in the centre of the east wing, and since then the wing had been completely abandoned and a doorway was built to separate out the wings of this mansion.

Wards were placed on the doorway keeping out the evil and darkness that lurks in the east wing, words has been passes down generations by generations that no one is to go and cross over to the other side of the mansion if not tragedy will befalls. Nearly a century has passes by since then, but I wasn't sure if that lunatic in there was still alive or not. If alive, the worst scenario would have to kill her off – and if already dead, then we have a bigger problem at hand." Mai recounted the tale she had heard from her mother in prior, on her deathbed.

"Excuse me… but if it happened a century ago, surely the person whom tried to do the ritual would be dead already, no?" The monk interjected from his position.

"In usual circumstances, that would be the case." Mai responded, grimly.

"What is so unusual about this situation then?" The monk question back in return.

"I'll have you know - the lifespan of a full-fledge powerful witch could last through a century or more…" Mai muttered aloud.

"Pardon me, did you just say – a witch? Certainly that can't be true … this is no Harry Potter realm, you know?" The monk continues on, scepticism apparent now.

"Believe what you want, but I am not joking about this issue. This is the exact words from my mother, and she wouldn't lie of such things." Mai retorted back, her features solemn.

"Why would your mother tell you all these, and how could you be certain that she wasn't lying to you?" Naru pointed out, objectively.

"My mother is not lying because she had no reason to, she told me because I should know about it – as well. Topping it off together, I would think my mother to know her own family history better than the others out there. Yukimura Maika was the name of my mother … cousin to our client this time around, and sister to the late Yukimura Hisashi." Mai recounted, sending a challenging look towards Naru to dig through the history of the Yukimura Clan if he dared to.

"We shall continue this conversation at another time, for now – lets' just set up the base. Matsuzaki-san, Takigawa-san – do go around setting up the equipments. John accompanied Hara-san to do a walk-through and see if we can get anything about the spirits. Mai get me some tea from the kitchen, and while at it – do a record of the temperatures about the house too." Naru instructed, while he busied himself with the task of setting up the equipments in the base with Lin's help.

Date edited: 4/2/2013

I changed the name of Ayako officially to Matsuzaki Ayako, following what the Wiki-pedia listed down.


	3. Chapter 3 - Case of Yukimura Clan

A/N: Plot bunnies won't leave me alone, so this story emerges. This is my first attempt at Ghost Hunt Fic.

Title: The Ups and Down in the Life of Taniyama Mai

Pairing: NaruxMai

Summary: Mai is not as ordinary as she appeared to be – she has a secret and a latest case taken by the SPR forces her to lay it out in the open. Follow her as she and the SPR gang carried on in their ghost hunting adventures… Eventual NaruMai.

Disclaimer: **Ghost Hunt is not mine, copyright belonged to Fuyumi Ono.**

Chapter 3 – Case 1: The case of the Yukimura Clan, Part 3

"_No! H__iro-niichan!" A shrill cry woke Mai out from her slumber as she tried to gather herself together, the dark surrounding and the light glow in the centre of it all clued her in on the fact that she's probably dreaming it all again. Thankfully, this time around it was not any of those first person viewpoint dream but as a third party observant kind of dream. _

"_Shut up, Ai! Our fam__ily has no room for a squib that can't perform magic! Now hurry along with your study, you do not want to keep your teacher waiting." The man had said his tone harsh and laced with a trace of anger while he spoke. _

_Ai suppressed the urge to throw back a sharp retort of her own before stalking off to the study of the house, careful to keep her face free from signs of tears and anguish while her inner self lashes out in anger and devastation. Her raw energy from her magic spun out of control literally as lamps and bulbs were shattered as she stalked down the corridor hallways leading towards the study's location. _

_The scene changes again as Mai found herself looking in onto a scene that reminded her of the series of 'Harry Potter' in the movies, in dimly lit area where the walls are made up of stones. Books were seen scattered all over the place, and parchments of writing could be seen littering all over the table. Mai inched in closer to take a look at what was being written on the parchments, and almost immediately reeled back in shock repulsion. The writing were of human sacrificial and the ritual procedure to bring one back from the realm of the dead, the art of necromancy. _

_Once Mai registered that idea in mind, she was pulled yet into another scenario. This time around, the image was of the study located in the eastern part of the mansion. How she determined that sheer fact, she wasn't sure – but she was certain in her affirmations. The same man from her first vision was now standing within the study facing an emotionless Ai, she could easily see that both of them had their wands out directing towards one another – a wizard's duel, somehow the term just flashed itself into Mai's consciousness. _

_The sound of the killing curse was heard coming from Ai's lips, as the thunder and lightning flashes outside of the building adding on to the creepy feel in the air. Mai placed both her hands on her mouth in shock to keep herself from gasping aloud, Ai had really loses it in the mind going to the extent of killing her own father to revenge on her dead brother. Laughter that belonged to a mental nut case escaped from Ai's lips, as her eyes turned into one that reflected insanity. _

"_Just hang in there, Hiro-nii… I'll get you back in no time, I swear!" Ai whispered to no one in particular, a chill ran down Mai's spine as she stared on in disbelief. _

_The next scenario that came into sight was the preparation for the ritual to begin, it was so horrible that Mai nearly turned away from the sight of it all but she willed herself to watch on – as it was probably a clue that will help them solve the case of the haunting. The ritual was mid-way in action when it was interrupted by an eighteen year old female – whom Mai suspected to be either a cousin or a sibling to Yukimura Ai. The two girls did look similar in an uncanny manner. _

_Mai watched on in silence as the two girls battled one another out, when it became apparent that nothing was going to stop Ai from completing the ritual. The elder girl had all but start chanting in an ancient language, sacrificing herself in the attempt while binding her soul to the wards of the house at the same time raising a dagger and stabbed Ai hard down in the chest killing Ai in the process of doing so. That was the last scene before Mai found herself slipping back out from the dreams, and starting to wake in reality. _

Mai awoke from her sleep with her heart thumping wildly from her chest area, the dream scene replaying itself in her mind before she sprang upright to a sitting position and make a mad dash for the family library that's situated upstairs on the second storey of the western wing of the house. She was on a quest to go in search for a copy of the family tapestry, there is something bugging her and she have every intention to address the nagging thought in her mind.

"Wait up – Mai! Where are you going?! Naru said you are not supposed to be heading out on your own." Mai distinctively heard the sound of Ayako calling out for her while she sprints through the corridors, but she could hardly care about it all.

Moments later, she came back to the base room with a yellowish scroll under her arms and a stack of books in her arms. Behind her was another girl around Mai's age, long blonde hair being tied up into a pony tail as she pushed Mai back into the room.

"Mai, are you alright?" Ayako asked, as she pulled the dazed-like brunette to the sofa couch while the blonde girl took the items from Mai's grasp.

"I guess, you are Yukimura Sanae – the niece of Yukimura Mitsuo?" Naru asked, since the only people he didn't managed to interview the day before happened to be the niece of their client rumoured to be living in this mansion for most if not all of her time, and had yet to encounter any of the strange happenings.

"Yes, I am Yukimura Sanae. Before you asked, I will tell you everything that I know in a short while – but I think we had better do something about getting her out from the trance-like mode first." Sanae stated, while shooting a look towards Mai's direction.

"Mai… you have to snap out of it, what happened is already is the past. You cannot change them!" Sanae emphasized as she give Mai a tight slap on the cheeks waking the brunette up to face the present reality.

"But that is so horrible… how could he do that in front of Ai? Forcing her to watch her own twin being killed so naturally, what's wrong for being born a squib? Is the ability to do magic so important that it weighs more than the life of his flesh and blood?!" Mai questioned aloud, not really expecting an answer though.

"…Can someone please clue us in just what the hell was going on here and what is Mai droning on and on about?!" Ayako was beyond frustration, not a single word emitting forth from Mai's lips held any meaning to her or whatsoever and judging from the rest of the SPR members' expressions – neither of them do, anyway.

"Mai has a dream." It was Sanae that answered them all, but there was something else that she did not tell – about Mai sneaking into one of the memories stored within the family library. The memories kept within the family library are for documentation of important events that took place within the family, and among them included the primary cause to their current situation at hand.

The memories of Yukimura Asami - that was the pensive which Mai had the idea in mind to plunge into without any supervision. If she had not been alerted by the wards of the library about someone trespassing, and reached there in time to pull Mai out from the memories – the worst thing that could have happened to Mai was for the brunette to remain stuck where she was in that pensive of memories stored.

"I gathered as much." Lin muttered aloud to no one in particular, as he brings his laptop over to sit himself in front of the distraught brunette.

"Taniyama-san, look at me … can you recount what you'd seen earlier on in your dream to us?" Lin asked, keeping his tone serious and devoid of emotions as he did so.

Mai nodded, as she launched into a detailed recount of what she had seen happening in her dreams and some events from the memories of Yukimura Asami that she had chanced upon in the pensive with Sanae helping her to explain certain wizardry terms that no one else had any clues about. By the end of it all, everyone was solemn and in contemplation of the situation.

"So in short, we basically have a lunatic ghost of a witch to be dealing with?" The monk summarized after Mai completed her recount, if he had been sceptical about the existence of witches and wizards – his scepticism had been put to rest when Yukimura Sanae came out front with her 'wand' waving acts and several things started to move by them-selves.

Tea pouring and floating towards the people within the room, then pen started to write something down on the notepad without anyone holding it. PK cannot do that, Lin and Naru had confirmed then and then Mai added her own share of it by pointing a pointer wand to her own head withdrawing a silvery mist from her brain and placing it in an empty pot or sort – dragging all of them in to see for themselves what exactly did she witness in that dream of hers.

Disorientation is what everyone had felt after tumbling out from the memory scene, the monk felt like gagging when he thought back to the feeling he had had when being pulled into the memory scene. Masako ended up fainting after all, but probably was due to the process of the ritual as compared to the light-headed feeling from being dragged in and out of the memory scenes.

John and Ayako seemed horrified by the number of sacrifices made in that one ritual itself. Whereas Naru and Lin had managed to keep their features impassive, giving out no hinting as to their own emotional aspects upon those sights and Mai, on the other hand, was just blank and without emotions.

"You're a witch." Naru had stated flatly, upon the group's return from the memory walk.

Mai nodded to his statement, but her eyes were obviously averting from the narcissist. Yukimura Sanae laid a sympathetic hand on Mai's back, comforting the distressed brunette. The girl knew Mai was uncertain about the possible reactions from those friends that had now witnessed and see for themselves – the secret which Mai had been guarding them against for so long.

Almost instantly, Sanae had felt bad – if only she had been firm enough in her objections to have Yukimura Mitsuo moving in here with the rest of his family…the situation would not have escalate down to this point to have drag Mai in together with her newly found friends.

"Silly girl, why did you hide this from us?" The self-claimed priestess is the first to address the brunette, after soaking in all the recent happenings that had transpired.

"I don't know really… perhaps, I just didn't want to risk losing it all again." Mai responded, still not daring to look up at the SPR gang as of yet.

"Certainly, you are not thinking that we are going to cast you aside now that your secrets out in the open are you?" The monk started in on Mai next, incredulity apparent on his features as he addressed the brunette seated on the couch with every intention to avoid glancing towards their direction.

"Don't you people just think me a freak?!" Mai questioned back in return, agitation and distress rolling off her aura – feeling all her self-control on her magical sense slipping out of control.

"Mai, calm yourself down this instant!" Naru practically ordered, his tone commanding before softening down a notch in Mai's sense. "You are not a freak, so what if you are a witch in disguise of a normal being all these while?"

"Naru is right, if you being a witch could be considered for being a freak – then what does that leaves me?" Hara Masako added in her own penny in the situation, the ability of being a medium is hardly considered normal by usual human beings' standards.

"Masako…" Mai started, sounding slightly surprise upon the bratty medium's response. Relief flooded through her senses as she brings herself to look at each and every one of her friends, noting their reactions carefully while she did so. Neither of them seemed to be irked by her witch heritage, granted a little annoyance was present in them – but that was most likely pertaining to her decision to hide her heritage a secret from them.

"Thank you…" Mai eventually found herself saying, as she wept from the happiness that threatens to overwhelm her.

"Jou-chan, that's enough already… you've got to stop crying over this little things." The monk said, as he busied himself with the task of handling tissues over to the brunette.

"Well… excuse me for being a cry-baby then." Mai muttered under her breath, as she wiped her tears dried with the offered tissue paper before turning her attention back to the task at hand.

"Alright then, let's get back to the matter at hand – shall we?" Mai announced, after she managed to get her hay-wired emotions in check.

"Yes, but before that – Mai…" Naru started.

"Yes?" Mai looked up at the narcissist in question.

"Bring me some tea from the kitchen."

"…Argh! Some things just don't change, at all!" Mai growled aloud before stalking out from the base and headed towards the kitchen to get that royal highness of the SPR the tea that he requested.

With Mai out of the picture for the time-being, Naru instructed for Lin to take down notes while he conducted the long overdue interview with Yukimura Sanae.

In the meantime, John and the rest of the SPR members take the time to sift through what Mai had brought over from the family library. They took only a minute of time to locate that yellowish parchment, and rolled it out for all to see.

"Wow… I didn't know parchments this old still exists in the world…" John commented, as he took in the sight of the Yukimura's family tapestry drawing upon the yellowish parchment.

"Ah… that one eh, I see that Mai managed to duplicate it from the library. The actual copy of the tapestry is magically enchanted and sticks to the wall of the library – it cannot be taken off or taken out of that place." Yukimura Sanae took a moment to glance over at John, before responding to John's comment.

A crash sounded just outside the door, alerting everyone within the base to head over for an investigation. Turns out Mai had crashed head-on into the barrelling figure of Yukimura Rena, one of the six year old twins' daughters of the client. Yukimura Sanae sighed aloud, as she ventured forth to take the crying girl into her arms while Mai face palmed her-self upon the sight of the over-turned teapot that now lies on the ground.

"Rena… how many times must I say – to not run down the hallways?" Mai started warningly, but the six year old paid her no attention and instead started to ramble on about how she had missed the presence of Sanae.

"… Sanae, I think you'd best go back to the twins." Mai started in, and with a wave of her wand over the mess lay upon the ground – the initial over-turned teapot now was filled up again with newly brewed tea.

"Mai… I said for you to bring me a fresh pot of tea." Naru started to speak, only to have Mai cutting him off.

"I did bring you the tea, didn't I? Well, although it had overturned once but I had return it to its' original state already – haven't I?" Mai responded, not budging from her position at all.

Mai had no intention to head back down to the kitchen to get a new pot, especially she had chanced upon the return of Yukimura Mitsuo earlier on when she ventured to the kitchen to get the pot of tea for Naru done. Therefore she had opted for the alternative – to charm the pot with a spell to refill itself with freshly brewed tea whenever it was being emptied out.

With that done, the brunette proceeded to ignore Naru fully while she gathered everyone around to look over the family tapestry of the family. Explaining who is who while pointing to the names and making references to the figures being sighted earlier on in their trip with her down her memory lane using the pensive. (* refer to fig. 1 towards the end of fic for tapestry drawings)

"Okay… so this Yukimura Ai that we saw in your memory would be this particular one?" The monk questioned as he pointed a finger towards the name reflected on the tapestry that matches Mai's dream or memory, or whatsoever.

"Yes, I would believe so – so far no one else had been given a repeated name for that." Mai nodded her agreement to what the monk had just mentioned.

"Alright… judging from what we've seen in your dream memory of sort – this Yukimura Ai is already dead, right?" The monk continues on.

"It would appear to be the case, since the dagger did plunge in deep around the area of her chest. So unless by some miracle she managed to survive through that hideous wound, I would assume she's dead." Mai responded, matter-of-factly.

"So now maids are being said to have gone missing when they bustled around the place in the night-time, no?"

"Correct." Another nod of affirmation from Mai.

"No one had seen how it happened, only that the following day these maids on night shift duty could never be found within the estates again – no?"

"Once again, you are correct in your saying." Mai nodded to whatever the monk had managed to piece together using the reports gathered from the interview.

"Okay… then there's the issue of Yukimura Rika's tendency to have night-mare before the incident took place…"

"Exactly…" Mai echoed, while her mind started to ponder over the various possibilities that might have given them inkling to why it happened in this manner.

"Mai… is there a possibility of Yukimura Rika being gifted with ability like yours too?" John started, trying to see a link between those nightmares of Rika and the disappearance acts of the maids.

"That I am not too sure of, what we can be certain was that – all these ruckuses started around the same time that idiotic man decided to tear down the bloody door-way that he deemed beyond his standard of appreciation." Mai growled upon the thought of their client, causing the members of the team to fell into an awkward moment of silent while Mai fumed to herself.

"What is the purpose of that door-way and why was it built?" Someone had it in mind to ask, drawing the brunette back to the topic of discussion at hand.

"The doorway acted as a separator and divider between the two wings, it was built under the decision of Yukimura Asami but executed only after her death by her brother – Yukimura Akito. Heavy wards cast with powerful and pure white magic were on that door-way, it was said that the doorway helped to keep out the evil that lurks in the corner of the eastern wing. How exactly does it do that, I am not sure of it either. What I do know is that it was tied to the magic of Yukimura Asami whom sacrified herself in order to stop the ritual conducted by Yukimura Ai back then." Mai responded, the memories she had seen in the pensive was just part of the events that took place back in the past.

"Okay… so when the doorway is there, nothing this bizarre happened before?" John questioned next, the sheer idea of the existence of a door-way can help to ward off evil was something unusual for him so he was quite interested in finding out how it all worked.

"Well… not exactly, but the happenings weren't this frequent. In fact, the disappearances will only takes place within the eastern wing itself and only on days whereby there are people residing within the halls of the eastern wings." Yukimura Sanae spoke up when she came back into the room, after coaxing Rena off to bed.

"If the eastern wing is so unstable and dangerous, why is it that there are still people willing to reside in those halls?" Ayako voiced out her doubts next, not comprehending the situation at all.

"Those are people like uncle Mitsuo, him-self whom thought those legends of the eastern wing being haunted by darkness – bullshit." Mai muttered aloud from her unmoving position on the couch, sporting on a look of absolute detest.

"Mai… while I know you hated him with a passion to begin with, it still does not change the fact that he is our uncle." Sanae interjected, her tone gentle but reprimanding at the same time.

"So kind of you to be so forgiving towards him, after what happened with your father!" Mai shot back in defiance.

"Mai…!" Sanae snapped then, and Mai stopped in her mid-rant before apologizing for her behaviour.

"Hands off that book, I will help you with the research in that factor but you are going to have to stop flipping through those kinds of books – they are starting to affect you in more ways than one, contrary to what you may believe in otherwise." Sanae said warningly as she stepped forth to yank the book held in Mai's hand away by force.

"But Sanae…" Mai started to protest, only to have the blonde girl cutting her off mid-speech.

"Enough, you jolly well knows that everyone with the blood of Yukimura flowing through their veins would be vulnerable against the lure of the dark arts. My father and your mother are typical cases of it, while they managed to not fall into those traps – it costs them the drainage of their life energies as they fought the lure of the dark arts. I will not stand by and watch you suffer the same fate in silence, I am the only one immune by far – and you know it too. Now you go on and take a nap, I will explain things here to your friends." Sanae emphasized, as she send Mai off to bed while she took over the task of researching for the brunette.

Mai had no idea what was being said between both parties, but it seems like they have come to an agreement of sort to keep her out from the investigation process at all cost. The only thing that remained unchanged seems to be her duty of making tea for Naru that appeared to be the only thing she would be entrusted to do throughout the next three days that follows. Then at night, she would be sent off to bed with the Yukimura twins – much to her confusion and bewilderment. In response to her query when she finally have a chance to ask, Sanae had claimed that her duty while sleeping in the twins room was to guard them from the dangers using the reasoning that Mai has a very extensive and good knowledge on defence spells against the enemy. Naru, together with Lin had then seconded their opinion in sync with Sanae's decision – Mai could have sworn her jaw went slack then.

Day 6

"Mai, come in here for a second." The commanding tone of Naru reached Taniyama Mai just as she was contemplating on the option of going past the base, without the need to poke her head through the half-closed doorway.

"Yes? What is it? Do you need more tea to be served or what?" Mai grumbled as she stepped into the base where she had been forbid to enter with the exception of serving tea over the past three days.

"No, there's no need for tea to be served. I called you in here because a decision has been made – pertaining to the haunting." The sound of Yukimura Sanae's voice came instead of the unfeeling tone of that narcissist caused Mai to blink in confusion, before darting glances to and fro between the two.

"Okay… so what is it then?" Mai questioned, still confused by the way how Naru just seemed to step back and let Sanae speak on his behalf.

"We will be doing a purification ritual on the house, and that is where you come in." Sanae stated simply while she regarded Mai with calming eyes.

"Purification Ritual… would that actually work?" Mai tilted her head sideways as she wondered aloud.

"If done in the correct manner, it should work." Sanae responded in a calming and collectedly manner.

"Okay… so what do I have to do then?" Mai questioned, now finally getting the idea why she was called in when she had been forbidden to enter unless ordered in by Naru's commands from before.

"I will need you to draw out the formation with the use of runic terms." Sanae replied good-naturedly.

"Does that mean you would be the one conducting the ritual then?" Mai asked.

"Who else is there to do the job?" Sanae arched an eyebrow up in scepticism while Mai do a quick scan through of the members of the SPR before nodding in comprehension. It was true that no one else could be up for the task of conducting such a ritual, sealing ceremony for a ghost might be accomplishable by Lin but not a purification ritual.

"Fine, when do we start?" Mai nodded her agreement on this issue, and asked next.

"Tomorrow morning." Sanae responded, while making a move to leave the base.

"Huh? Tomorrow, why wait until then?"

"Because my dear… the ritual cannot begin until we finished all the necessary preparation work."

"Oh… so what are we going to do now – then?"

"Evacuation of the mansion's residents is the first thing that needs to be done. I shall leave that to the capable hands of you and your team, whereas I, on the other hand is going to get my hands on the preparation work of the ritual." With that said, the blonde removed herself from the group's view with the use of an apparition magic.


	4. Chapter 4 - Case of Yukimura Clan

A/N: Plot bunnies won't leave me alone, so this story emerges. This is my first attempt at Ghost Hunt Fic.

Title: The Ups and Down in the Life of Taniyama Mai

Pairing: NaruxMai

Summary: Mai is not as ordinary as she appeared to be – she has a secret and a latest case taken by the SPR forces her to lay it out in the open. Follow her as she and the SPR gang carried on in their ghost hunting adventures… Eventual NaruMai.

Disclaimer: **Ghost Hunt is not mine, copyright belonged to Fuyumi Ono.**

Chapter 4 – The case of the Yukimura's Clan, Part 4

Day 7

The members of the SPR were among the last to be evacuate from the mansion, initially, Mai was unwilling to leave but Sanae had insisted upon her leaving. To quote her initial words – 'you are equally in danger when it comes down to the idea of resisting dark arts, therefore you should leave immediately.' Then before Mai could said anything else, that narcissistic boss of hers had all but knocked her out cold before proceeding to drag her out from the house while the purification ritual took place.

The purification ritual was the toughest part of the whole exorcism part, first of all the wards being placed around the house would need to be taken down and dismantled. That was done by Sanae her-self seeing as there is no one else available to help, with Mai already out cold. Next, Lin was being requested to be on stand-by mode while Sanae stepped into the circle within the formation drawing that she had created for her own usage while she kick the start to the ritual off.

According to the words of one Hara Masako, which Mai had no idea how true her recount was – the ritual was off to a rocky start, because all of a sudden furniture just seemed to be fling in all kinds of direction as the angry spirit residing in it rages on. The rattling, shaking of the furniture had only come to a stop after Sanae's body started to emit off a layer of white glow that seemed to get the spirit to cower in fear, or sort.

Then slowly and bit by bit, the sinister feel surrounding the house began to deplete itself and soon it was no more. Eventually, the blonde girl re-appeared in front of the SPR team claiming that the purification ritual was completed with a weak smile, and all that's left now is to deal with the rest of the spirits that lingers on behind in the mansion.

Mai woken up to find the weary figure of Yukimura Sanae guarding her side, and immediately she pounced on the older girl.

"The ritual's complete; your friends are searching the place again to determine if there's any other lingering spirits around here." That was the only response given to Mai by the blonde.

"What of Yukimura Ai's spirit? Is it gone now?" Mai pressed on.

"It should be… and to play safe, we burned the skeleton of her body to ash." Yukimura Sanae responded wearily.

"You could tell which skeleton belongs to her…?" Mai questioned in skepticism.

"No, so to play safe – I burned all the skeletons found in the east wing of the house." The elder girl told Mai.

Silence engulfed the two cousins before it was broken by the return of the members of the SPR, Naru merely took one look at Mai's conscious state before commanding for the girl to start packing up for their return to the city.

To which, Mai complied easily and without complaints – she had a lot on her mind, after all. It kind of bugged her that she didn't get to see Gene at all during the dreams of this particular case. Not that she need anyone to guide her for this particular one…

Gene… Yes, Mai knew that the dream Naru was in actuality – her narcissistic boss identical twin. She knew her boss was actually the infamous Oliver Davis from UK, and the Naru she met on regular basis in her dreams was actually Eugene Davis. However, this little piece of information only becomes apparent to her about three months ago when she started having snippets of vision sights on random timing.

The visions scenes were nothing gruesome in fact it consisted of some fuzzy memories from her past that she suspected was either suppressed by psychological means or was lost during some potions mishaps incidents. Mai suspected that these snippets of vision was actually a part of her concealed memories from the 5 years she spend in the United States of America, and funny enough – she seemed to have know Eugene Davis back then. Why exactly were her memories concealed or suppressed then, Mai had no idea. Nevertheless, she had a suspicion that everything will play out by itself in time to come…

On the way back to the city of Tokyo, Mai as expected of her – fell asleep. With the stress level taken off her on the return trip, it was no doubt that she slept all the way through – as though catching up to the number of hours she had lost while keeping herself awake on the trip here.

"_You'__ve done fantastically well on this case by yourself." The dream Naru or rather Eugene Davis, better else known as Gene smiled as he addressed the brunette in front of him. . _

"_Gees, thanks a lot for leaving me alone in those dreams of mine back then – what an irresponsible dream guide you are." Mai comme__nted aloud, annoyance clearly being spell out on her face. _

"… _It wasn't exactly that I could have stopped what the house actually wanted you to see – right?" The identical image of one narcissist commented with his never wavering smile in place. _

"_Alright, __point taken – I guess. So tell me this, Gene… all of these was not a coincidence, right?" Mai questioned back in return, gesturing to the surrounding on the astral plane. _

"_You have got to be a little more specific on that…" Gene commented back in return._

"_You don't seem to be surprise by me addressing you as Gene…" Mai narrowed her eyes at the black-haired teen; she usually addressed him as 'Naru' with the exception for today. By right, Gene should be surprised by his identity being known to her and not remained unaffected unless she was supposed to know who he was from the start._

"…_I'm not surprised by it because I know you would remembered one of these days about how to tell us apart…" Eugene Davis responded with a wistful look on his face. _

"_So I do know you from before… but why is it that I can't remember anything about it?" Mai asked in a sense of urgency. _

"_All will be revealed in time…" Gene said, looking at Mai with a sad smile that frustrates the brunette to no end. _

"_Why do I feel as though I'm missing a big part of my memories, and why is it that you are involved in that big missing chunk of my memories?" Mai pressed on, feeling the urge to yank her hair out as she said so. _

"_Mai… sad to say but I can't reveal the reasons to you, at least not now…" Eugene Davis looked on at Mai with sadness before reaching a hand out tentatively to remove Mai's hands from her head. _

"_Gene… what happened to you that caused you to end up as my dream guide?" Mai whispered next, and felt the hands on hers' stilled for a moment before she heard a sigh from the teen. _

"_That again, was for me to know and you to find out at another point of time…" The teen responded, a bit shakily but Mai cannot be certain of it as her head was now pressed against Eugene's chest so she cannot look up and determined the boy's expression for herself. _

"_There's nothing you could tell me now, isn't it?" Mai whispered, sounding weary of it all – together. _

"_Sorry…all I can say is for you to wait patiently for the moment of truth to come…" Eugene Davis responded, patting the back of the brunette comfortingly as he hugged Mai._

"_Fine… one last question; I've never met Naru before the case at my high school – right?" Mai sighed, dropping her previous topic of discussion and brought up another topic instead. _

"_Well, yes…Noll wasn't with me when I visited New York." Gene responded carefully. _

"_Noll…was that his nickname?" Mai asked, sounding curious and amazed at the same time. _

"_Yes…it's my nickname for him actually, but eventually the name stuck and everyone in the UK just started addressing him by that name." Gene grinned triumphantly. _

"_No wonder he seemed so stunned when I first called him 'Naru' in front of Lin, now come to think about it – Lin seemed frozen for a while when I first uttered the name 'Naru'. I gathered it is because of how similar it had sounded like 'Noll' only in another accent…" Mai mused aloud, now the mystery behind that 5 seconds slip of mask was solved. _

"_Indeed, noticed how he had started addressing you as Mai after you dubbed him the new nickname of 'Naru'?" Gene pointed out with a fond smile._

"_I didn't notice it before… but now that you mentioned it… What a coincidence it was." Mai shakes her head ruefully upon the memory of SPR first case in Japan. _

"_Mai…" Eugene started suddenly, drawing Mai out from her thoughts. _

"_Yes…?" Mai questioned, cocking her head slightly to the side to express her curiosity. _

"_No… nothing, I'll tell you another time…" Eugene only shakes his head and smiled._

"_Speaking of which, I gathered you knew I'm a witch?" Mai questioned, although her memory was fuzzy but since she met Gene in the US – there's a chance of Eugene knowing about her witch heritage, no?_

"_We met in the academy itself." Gene's answer was quite straightforward. _

"_What…? Why on earth were you in there…Never mind, forget that I asked." Mai was about to question Eugene's reason for being in the Salem Academy when she recalled a fact that the school not only takes in magical students, but also psychics. _

"_To answer your question, I'm there to speak with the school management about the collaboration between Salem Academy and the BSPR." Eugene Davis responded matter-of-factly._

"_BSPR…?" Mai repeated in a quizzical manner. _

"_British Supernatural & Psychic Research Centre…" Eugene explained upon noting the bewildered expression on Mai's features. _

"_Oh…" Mai made a knowing sound then, before she sighed – upset about the fact that she didn't remember anything from the process of how she got to know Naru's twin. _

"_Mai… don't dwell on it too much. Come on, it's time for you to wake up." With that, Eugene Davis pushes the brunette lightly and the next thing Mai knew was the fact that she was back in the reality plane. _

"Where are we now?" The question was out from Mai's lips before she could stop herself – upon her waking up from her dream.

"I would have thought you would have the sense to look for yourself." The snide remark came from Naru as per normal.

"I take it that we are on our way back to the office?" Mai asked, as she rubbed the sleep out from her eyes.

"Where else do you think we are heading?" Naru questioned his tone flat.

"Well… pardon me for trying to clear certain things up." Mai growled in response, before settling for ignoring the narcissistic guy for the rest of the journey back to the SPR office.

"Mai…" Naru started again, causing the brunette to glare at him with annoyance while biting out a harsh 'What' in response.

"Remember to submit a copy of your certification from your other sector of studies." Naru said, before turning his attention back to his book – while Mai blanked out for a moment before catching on to Naru's meaning.

"What the hell…?! Why do you even need it?" Mai growled, not understanding behind the reason why Naru was requesting them to be submitted for. That had nothing to do with her usual work duties, right?

"For the benefit of your tiny midget mind, I would explain this one time. We are a company that works to investigate the Supernatural and Paranormal Activities – no?"

"So what has that got to do with my magical education and qualification…?" Mai throw back in response, but was silent by a 'look' from the narcissist.

"Can you just listen until I finished before interrupting?" Naru gritted out in annoyance.

"Fine, go ahead!" Mai huffed in equal amount of annoyance radiating off her body posture.

"Anything that could not be explained through the use of scientific reasons would be classified under supernatural phenomena, or otherwise labeled as paranormal activity. Magic to a certain extent could not be easily understood by the majority of the general public, just like psychics users – no?

Therefore, when such incidents comes along – people like us would be call in to investigate. While Lin and I could easily differentiate between a real paranormal happening and a happening that resulted from the use of psychic – there might be a possibility of the phenomena falling under the use of magical means, correct?

Seeing as both Lin and I had no knowledge in such fields, it is only natural for us to check your opinion under those circumstances since your secret is now out in the open for us to know. For the purpose of records and documentation, your qualifications from those aspects would be required for submission – do you now understood my reason for wanting to get a copy of those certifications of yours?" Naru then ended his explanation, with an expression of 'what a troublesome thing to do' when he looked over at Mai for some form of acknowledgement.

"Fine, I will zap a copy tomorrow for you when I come in for work!" Mai agreed grudgingly as she sat in stony silence for the rest of the journey that follows.

'Argh… I don't get it how could Gene be so sweet and understanding, while Naru be so insufferable and behaving like a jerk?!' Mai thought inwardly as she fumed to herself.

Date completed: 1/2/2013

P.S. Sorry for the short chapter, but well – I rewrite it two times to churn out this… so, bear with it okay.


	5. Chapter 5 - Yukai Karaoke Suite Part 1

A/N: Plot bunnies won't leave me alone, so this story emerges. This is my first attempt at Ghost Hunt Fic.

Title: The Ups and Down in the Life of Taniyama Mai

Pairing: NaruxMai

Summary: Mai is not as ordinary as she appeared to be – she has a secret and a latest case taken by the SPR forces her to lay it out in the open. Follow her as she and the SPR gang carried on in their ghost hunting adventures… Eventual NaruMai.

Disclaimer: **Ghost Hunt is not mine, copyright belonged to Fuyumi Ono.**

Chapter 5 – Case 2: The haunting of Yukai Karaoke Suite 1

A week had passes by uneventfully since the end of the Yukimura case, and Naru had yet to take on any new cases during which period of time. When being asked for a reason, the stoic teen had said nothing but claiming to say that he's giving Mai time to catch up with her lag-behind schoolwork. That caused the eyebrow of Mai to shoot up at least a notch, while thinking – since when did that slave driver boss of hers' start to give any thoughts to his employee's school commitment.

Nonetheless, Mai did not argue with Naru on this issue – he was after all, the boss of the SPR. Mai, on the other hand, is just a mere assistant to him so if he decided to not take case at all, it was still none of her business. As long as her paycheck remained unaffected, she could hardly care if the SPR took on a case, or not.

"Taniyama-san, we are intending to visit the karaoke – would you like to join us?" Mizuki Nanase, a classmate from her class approached Mai just as the school bell rang signaling the end of yet another ordinary school day.

"Thanks for the invite, but I can't. Today's Friday – I need to be in the office for work." Mai responded with her usual cheerful disposition.

"Again…? Don't mind me asking this, but do you even get any off-days from work?" Mizuki Nanase questioned, raising an eyebrow up at Mai while she voiced her doubt across. It seems like whenever she had it in her to try and bridge some friendly relations with Taniyama Mai; she would always be turned down due to the brunette's work reasons.

"Although, it didn't seem to be the case but I do get a day off each week's of work. It just so happens that my off-days were rather irregular and had to subjected to changes at all times." Mai responded in an apologetic manner.

Having been placed in a new class this year, she was separated from her usual group of girls' friend. Michiru and Keiko, having picked a different combination of subjects were in class 3-C, while Mai ended up in 3-B. Therefore, Mai has now gained another new nickname in school aside from the usual 'klutz' – she's also called a 'loner' now.

Not that she enjoyed being addressed as such by the boys in her class, but she had to agree that she was kind of lacking in the personal aspects of life. Despite being 18 year old this year, she had no boyfriends and no weekend activities. Topping it off together, no friends in class – these days she tends to eat her lunch alone in class unlike the previous two years when she was still in the freshman and sophomore years of the high school she was attending.

It was not that she did not tried to expand her socializing group, but the fact remains that whenever she had the intention in mind – she was either pre-occupied with work or she was on 'sick leave'. The so-called 'sick leave' was in actuality issued by the resident doctor of the SPR gang – Matsuaki Ayako, and it was presented to Mai's school to excuse her from classes in order to recover her strength after a particular nasty case the SPR had taken up and solved over weekends usually.

"Well, in that case we shall get going first. See you around." Mizuki Nanase told Mai, drawing the brunette out from her thoughts.

"Aa… good-bye, I'll see you girls tomorrow." Mai beamed and waved in return, sending her classmates off cheerfully.

Mai waited patiently for Mizuki Nanase and the other girls of her class to depart first, and then she started to pack her own bag. Not that she wants to dilly-dally, but it is more of a tactic to avoid the school out rush. Especially, today was Friday – and it usually translated to crowding hallways and foyers. Students were mainly gathering around waiting for their friends to join them for some fun and nice outing, and Mai who has something else planned for the day would normally made her way out using the school's side exit.

"Mai, Tea!"

Silence, and then Naru found his other assistant – Koujo Lin bringing him a cup of traditional green tea.

"…Lin, where's Mai?" The nineteen year old teen asked with a frown.

"I know you enjoyed her tea more, but mine wasn't that bad either. To answer your question, I told Taniyama-san to make a detour to the nearby stationery stores to restock some stationery that are running low in here." Koujo Lin, the now 29 year old man told his 'ward' with his usual poker face in place.

If Naru was irritated by Lin's decision without informing him in advance, he did not show any hints of it. Instead, he only nodded and commented. "Well, so long she wasn't coming in late without a valid reason."

"…" Lin wisely remained silent, and was half-way out from Naru's office when he heard the teen spoke again.

"Lin…gives her a call and tells her to drop by the post office on her way back to get some stamps as well."

"Sure, is there anything else you require?" Lin questioned, knowing for a fact that if he had to call up Taniyama every five minutes to add order, the brunette would definitely snapped when she came back into the office. The last time something like this happened, it ended with the brunette nearly dismantling the door of Naru's office.

Mai was standing in the aisle where the memo pads were being displayed within the store, when she received a call from Lin informing her to drop by the post office to get Naru some stamps.

"Is that all…?" Mai asked, she do not wish to make another trip down to the post office – again.

"Yes, that should be all – if Naru wanted to add any additional items; I'll get them myself." Lin responded, setting Mai's mind at ease.

"Okay, I'll be back in another 30 minutes or so." Mai told the elder assistant, before hanging up the call and continuing her task of comparing prices between the same set of stationery sets but of different branding. Eventually, she decided to get the brand with a more well-known image – since there was no need to save for the company, and besides the last thing she needs was for Naru to comment about the items she picks as 'cheapskate'.

It was five in the evening when Mai returned to the SPR office, and she entered the office just in time to witness Lin in the midst of ordering them dinner.

"Hold on a minute." Mai heard Lin said into the phone receiver, and then she heard the man asking her if she would want to have dinner together with them in the office.

"Erm…sure, I'm alright with Chinese takeout." Mai responded, allowing the Chinese man to order another set for her consumption – too.

Naru was reading a book on psychology when Mai entered his office with the cup of tea in one hand and the booklet of stamps in another. Placing both the stamps and tea-cup onto the table, Mai said.

"Here are the stamps you want me to get from the post office, and also your favorite black tea." And then she waited.

"Was there anything that you need from me?" The nineteen year old started, causing Mai to sigh inwardly in response.

"No… nothing." Mai shakes her head in response.

"Well, in that case what are you waiting around for?" Naru prompted, causing Mai to huff in annoyance as she turned and stalked out of the office.

The trio was half-way into their dinner session which was engulfed in comfortable silence, when the phone to the office suddenly blares to life. Mai, without the need for Naru to remind her of the fact that the phone is ringing, hurried over to answer the call.

"Hello, Shibuya Psychic Research –This is Taniyama Mai speaking. How may I assist you?"

"Hi… I'm Yamamoto Kyousuke - the manager on duty calling from the Yukai Karaoke Suite. I have a matter that requires some serious help from your company. I'm sorry for calling in after office hours but I'm running out of options here." The man sounded rather desperate from what Mai had gathered, judging from the panicky tone of voice the man had taken to adopt while speaking.

"Not to worry sir, but you're right to say that the office is already close for today. Would you like to schedule an appointment with us to meet up for a discussion?" Mai suggested as she balance the phone between her neck and shoulder blade while she made a grab for her planner and a pen from her desk.

Flipping through the pages of her schedule organizer until she reaches the current month and week – Mai allowed her eyes to skim through the dates briefly before centering on the earliest available slot for the desperate man.

"Yes, that would be great – is there any empty slot that I could dropped by hopefully within the week?" Mai could detect the distress from the voice heard over the transceiver, so Mai do a quick scan on her planner before suggesting the earliest available slot for the said client.

"Well, I do have a slot for tomorrow afternoon at 2pm if that's alright with you." Mai suggested that's the earliest slot available on her planner and if the client wants to meet up at an earlier timing then Mai would have to refer to Lin for that particular arrangement.

The SPR normally started its operation for weekdays from 2pm onwards, and closes off for the day by 7pm in the evening. Weekends wise, it will depend on whether there is an ongoing case or not – if there is a case then probably it will be closed for the whole of weekends but if there's no particular case going on then the office would be open under standard office hours (9 to 5) for weekends.

Mai had no idea what Naru and Lin busied themselves with during the morning hours of the weekdays. She did not think it her position to be inquiring them on their whereabouts, besides even if she did asked – she highly doubt either one of them would filled her in on their plans. Mai was snapped out from her reverie, when she heard the sound of their potential client responding to her suggested timing with an affirmation response.

"Yes, that would be fine. So I'll see you and your team in the office tomorrow at 2.p.m then." Yamamoto Kyousuke said, sounding relieved that the SPR is granting him an opportunity to present his case to them.

Placing the phone back down on the cradle, Mai headed back to where her half-eaten dinner now lays with her copy of black planner in hand. The planner was given to her by Lin, and hence the color black – seems like everything in the office prior to her employment were going by the black and white schemes. Shaking herself to rid off such unwanted thoughts, Mai started to speak.

"Well, seems like a client would be coming in tomorrow at 2p.m. for a discussion. However, I might be late due to a fitness test in school tomorrow…" Mai left her sentence hanging, upon noting the look of irritation on Naru's face.

"…Don't tell me you have another appointment at that time?" Mai started, upon noting the look of hesitancy on Lin's face.

"Actually, it's nothing really… we can rescheduled." Lin was saying but Naru cut in then, with a strong and firm 'No' to Lin's words.

"…Never mind, you know what I'll just reschedule the client's timing. I'll just call him up now and put him around 5.30p.m tomorrow. Is that arrangement okay with you now, Mr. high and mighty?" Mai cut in snidely, this was exactly the reason why she dislikes consulting Naru on scheduling matters. Lin was easier to approach when it comes down to scheduling issues…

Mai was about to made her way to the phone and call up the client to amend the time, when Naru changed his mind and said.

"Never mind, I'll made the amendments on my side instead but you better make sure not to be late tomorrow; else I'll be docking the minutes off your paycheck for this month."

"You know, Naru – threatening to dock my pay all the time is really unbecoming." Mai retorted with a huff of annoyance, before heading back to her work desk and started on her filing work.

Naru, on the other hand, stalked back to his office to read in peace while Lin cleared away the dishes and leftovers of their dinner in silence.

The following day, Mai went to her school principal requesting for the permission to do her fitness test first because she have a case later on in the day. The principal of course agreed easily enough, he was quite grateful to Naru and the SPR and hence his willingness to create leeway for Mai's convenience.

Mai dashes into the office of the SPR around 1.45p.m, and wasted no time in getting the afternoon tea ready for both Naru and the incoming client. Once 2.p.m arrived, the door to the SPR office was pushed open promptly and a man in his mid-thirties appeared in the doorway with some slight apprehension.

"Hello, I'm here for a discussion with the boss here. My appointment is at 2…are you Ms. Taniyama?" The man asked, upon landing his eyes on Mai.

"Yes, I assumed you are Mr. Yamamoto?" Mai started, as she took in the dreadful appearance of the man.

"Ah yes, thank you for being willing to hear me out on this issue." Yamamoto Kyousuke responded, sounding extremely relief that Mai had been willing to listen to his problem faced at his work place.

"Its fine, come over and take a seat over at the couch while I'll go and get my boss out to speak with you." Mai told the man, before heading towards the other two offices and retrieved her boss – Naru, and the Chinese onmyouji - Lin.

Soon after Mai informed them about their client's arrival, Lin emerged from his office with his laptop in hand and Naru followed suit with his black book. Mai, on the other hand, entered the kitchen to get them tea for the discussion.

"I apologized for my sloppy attire, but I had the misfortune to be caught in another washroom crisis of a mini-flood." Yamamoto explained the reason behind his half-drenched attire, seeing as it wasn't even raining outside.

"…Was that mini-flood the problem that sends you coming to us for help? If so, I highly suggested for you to get a plumber in to look at the piping about the place." Naru said in sarcasm.

"Naru, be nice!" Mai interrupted, upon catching the look of distress on the client's face after emerging out from the kitchen with the tea-cups in hand.

"Here, Yamamoto-san – do have some tea to unwind. Now can you tell us in details, what are the strange happenings that plagued your work place?" Mai coaxed patiently, visibly noting the way Yamamoto Kyousuke was behaving under the scrutiny of Lin and Naru's observant eyes.

"Okay… like what Shibuya-san had said before, the flood was indeed one of the reasons that send me here. Trust me when I say I did get in the plumbers to look at the pipes, but nothing changed at all even after the maintenance work was completed on site. The toilets are still flooding on daily basis, and not just the toilets are affected even the kitchen would be flooded when it happens. Once I even have staff coming to me with feedback about the water tasting weird – like copper, they say. There's another instances, the chef working in the kitchen was telling me that the water that flows out of the tap was red in color, and it looks like the shade of a blood that is being diluted in water."

Lin took notes while Naru appeared to be contemplative on the issue, Mai listened attentively while her mind race with possible scenarios of how the phenomena may have occur.

"Was that all or are there other disturbance occurring?" Naru prompted next, Mai could see that he was thinking whether or not to accept the case.

"Yes, aside from the toilet flooding issues – there has been reports of teenage girls being attacked in the hallway of the facility." Yamamoto started with some hesitancy on his part that caused Lin to pause for a split second in his typing before prompting.

"You mentioned girls being attacked, by that – what kind of attack are you talking about?"

Yamamoto Kyousuke blanched, before answering. "Sexual assault…"

Upon his response, Mai stumbled back in shock before she regained her composure and gasped. "How horrible…"

"When you say the girls were assaulted sexually, were there actually anyone responsible for the deed or were it done by some invisible force?" Naru asked, cutting direct to the point.

"Well… yes and no."

"I beg your pardon?" Mai frowned, as she wonders what kind of answer was that.

"According to the female staffs working there, there are times whereby they would feel something touching their butts and other areas of the body but when they turned around and try to pinpoint the instigator of those acts – they can't see anyone. Our patrons though, claimed otherwise – there have been 3 cases of molestation cases involving our waiters already."

"3 cases you say… are the culprit behind the molestation acts the same person, each time around?" Naru asked again.

"No… and that is what makes it so strange, no matter how many waiters we changed – the situation will simply keep on happening over and over again. And if we tried to switch to having a waitress serving the guests, the situation would be reversed with our male patrons assaulting our waitress." Yamamoto Kyousuke responded, sounding quite stressed out by the whole situation in general.

"I see…how long has this been going on already?" Naru prompted, and Mai could easily see the wheels turning in his mind now. In fact, the moment she heard Naru asking the client this question – she knew, the case is on.

"From what I've heard, this situation has been occurring every now and then. However, during its initial stage – the happenings were mild to say and it always takes place only during mid-nights hours but recently, it worsens."

"Alright, do prepare a room for us to be used as a base. We will be taking on this case, and would be there by tomorrow morning." Naru told Yamamoto Kyousuke, and then Mai was instructed to note down the contact information of the client.

Date started: 2/2/2013

Date completed: 2/2/2013

P.S. I took the comment of reviewer – Hikari Reizumi's advice to heart by trying to keep the sentence short. I apologized for some redundant and repetition of sentences sometimes, cause my head goes all fuzzy while writing – so it might slipped my notice, until I actually re-read it after I post the chapter.

Once again, please do review – so I would know where to improve on…aside from grammar errors, I'm weak in grammar. I'll try to finish this fic by this year end. I am working on my vampire knight's fic sequel at the same time, so I might be a little slow on this fic. This is Case 2, I've scrapped and re-write it twice… and let's hope this one is good enough.

I edit until I want to vomit blood, am now writing the next chapter to say… so please do kindly review, okay? Also let me know if there's any spelling errors sometimes I just missed it.


	6. Chapter 6 - Yukai Karaoke Suite Part 2

A/N: Plot bunnies won't leave me alone, so this story emerges. This is my first attempt at Ghost Hunt Fic.

Title: The Ups and Down in the Life of Taniyama Mai

Pairing: NaruxMai

Summary: Mai is not as ordinary as she appeared to be – she has a secret and a latest case taken by the SPR forces her to lay it out in the open. Follow her as she and the SPR gang carried on in their ghost hunting adventures… Eventual NaruMai.

Disclaimer: **Ghost Hunt is not mine, copyright belonged to Fuyumi Ono.**

Author's Note: Anything mentioned below are all made-believe, I know nothing about the real Japan shopping centre and how it looks like…

Chapter 6 - Case 2: Haunting at the Yukai Karaoke Suite 2

Day 1 - Sunday

The Yukai Karaoke Suite was situated quite near to the SPR, in fact – just two streets down from the building where the SPR office was located within.

"…How nolgastic, it has been ages since I came into this building already." Takigawa Houshou mused, as he stared up at the building where the Yukai Karaoke Suite was situated within.

"Aa… the infamous Shibuya Shopping Centre…" Matzusaki Ayako commented, as she too stared up at the building with a reminiscing look on her face.

"Ayako, Bou-san… are you sure you two should be standing around here and chatting idly? If Naru sees you now, he would no doubt flip." Mai interjected, as she helped to unload the lighter equipment onto the pavement walkway just outside the building.

The building was standing at four storeys high, lower than the newly built Shibuya City Mall that stands seven storeys in total. Shibuya Shopping Centre was first set up in the year 1950, and serves as a great shopping and entertainment location for the current middle-age group. Their client for this time, Yukai Karaoke Suite was situated at the fourth floor of the shopping centre itself.

Yukai Karaoke Suite follows the more westernized concept of karaoke entertainment system, from the design of the outlet to the karaoke system installed. Unlike the typical family style karaoke studio, whereby it involved the punching in of code numbers to the songs – basing on the song lists provided by the karaoke management. Yukai Karaoke Suite actually makes full use of the modern technology to serve their patrons.

The selection of songs can be done through touch-screen control panel situated by the side of the room, and it was controlled by the central computer system of the company operating the said karaoke facility. In this case, it helps patrons to save a lot more time than the usual traditional methods – because all you need to do was to look for a specific singer, band or you could simply search by the exact song titles. It was way better than the normal search via the alphabetical method.

The whole place was decorated in the color theme of red and black, and every karaoke room looks comfy and cozy. Basically, the whole level four of the shopping centre was utilized by the karaoke management. They have a total of 97 rooms cater to their patrons, out of which there are a total of 8 function rooms that comes equipped with a pooling table and karaoke system. 39 big rooms that can occupy a total of 15 to 20pax at one time; 20 medium size room that can fit in about 4 to 8pax at the same time and lastly 30 small size room that fits about 2-3pax.

The time now was 10 in the morning, and seeing that the karaoke usually starts its operation around noon-time. There is still another 2 hours to go before the staffs of the karaoke suite would start to punch in for work, and so when the SPR arrived at the investigation site – only the assistant manager to the Shibuya branch of Yukai Karaoke Suite was available to meet them.

"Welcome to the Shibuya branch of Yukai Karaoke Suite, my manager – Yamamoto-san has already informed me of the arrival of you lots. Come along with me, I'll guide you to the room that has been set aside for your usage as the investigation base."

"Thank you and you are…?" Mai took it upon herself to thank the assistant manager of the store, knowing for certain that Naru would never bother himself with it.

"I'm Hirokawa Emmanuel…" The assistant manager smiled as he responded to Mai's question.

"Hirokawa Emmanuel…? That's quite a unique name you have there…" Mai mused aloud, very peculiar indeed – by mixing a Christian name with Japanese family name; this was the first time Mai came across something like that.

"Why, yes… thank you. I'm of mixed origin actually; my father was an American and my mother native Japanese. Hirokawa is actually my mother's last name… Ah, here we are – this would be the room to use as your base. I hope it's big enough for you to fit in all the equipments." Emmanuel said, opening the door to the room as he addressed the rest of the SPR crew.

Mai took a look into the room and nearly had her eyes bulged out, they had actually allowed them the usage of one of their function rooms for the investigation?! Withholding the urge to request for a smaller size room, Mai hurried to scan the number of equipments they had brought along for the investigation and decided that it might be better for them to use this room after all. Between housing these computer units, and holding the seven of them all in one room – top in the fact that they still had to take into account the items that are in the room to begin with. Perhaps, it was not too exaggerated for them to use the function room.

"So is everything up to your standard of expectations?" The assistant manager of the karaoke branch prompted again, when he failed to receive any response from Mai.

"Ah yes… its fine actually. I was just calculating the space needed for our equipment…" Mai responded, nodding and thanking the man for the help provided.

"Just to check, when would Yamamoto-san be coming in today?" Naru questioned before the assistant manager could leave the area.

"He will be in by 3pm today, since he was on night shift the day before." Emmanuel told Naru, politely as though treating Naru as his VIP guests.

"I see, and when would the rest of the staff be coming in?" Naru asked next, leaving Lin to decide where to set up the computer and monitor units.

"The waiters and waitress would be in by 2pm, while kitchen staff will be in by noon as they would need to prepare the ingredients for tonight's supper treat to our patrons."

"Hm..m… Is it possible for you to gather those who were affected by the disturbance to be interviewed by us?" Naru finally brought up the subject of interviewing victims of the haunting.

"Ah, yes – sure I can arrange that. What time do you need them to come over for the interview?" Emmanuel questioned.

"I think 1pm would be good enough…by then we should be done with the setting up of the base already." Naru told the former, and once Hirokawa Emmanuel leaves them to their own devices – Naru started to bark out orders to the SPR crew.

"Takigawa and Matsuaki go around and set up the cameras. Father Brown, I want you to escort Hara-san about the place to do a walk-through. Mai, Tea – and do take down the temperature of every rooms while at it."

"Okay…okay, whatever you say…" Mai sighed, too lazy to argue with Naru on the 'tea-making' ritual anymore.

Grabbing the thermometer and the temperature reading board – Mai strolled out of the base, and started walking around the place checking on the temperatures of each room. While gathering the temperature reading, Mai noticed that the rooms situated on the western part of the facility are generally cooler while the ones on the east side are warmer. By right, the temperature should be the same – as this is a shopping centre and air-condition temperature should be controlled by the centralized system.

_Tap, Tap, Tap…_

_The sound of heels tapping on the floor caused Taniyama Mai to sprang up into an upright position, a quick glances about her surrounding – she found herself no longer in the Karaoke Suites hallway. The floor was now made up of marbles tiles, and she knew the karaoke suite had the floor carpeted – so there should not be any sound even if clogs or heels shoes were worn by the staffs and patrons alike. _

"_Oh great… just what I need – a dream at the worst possible timing ever." Mai muttered under her breath. _

_Snapping herself out from her grumpy like mood, Mai take the opportunity to really survey her current surrounding. It was dark, and the lighting in here was not that great – hence Mai cannot really see clearly. However, there was one thing she was certain and that is, the floor tiles were made up of white marbles. _

_Tap, Tap, Tap _

_The tapping of the shoes soles started echoing down the hallway again, and for some odd reasons – Mai started feeling the start of an anxiety attack. The question now was why? _

_Before she knew it, she was running down the hallway – and that was when she noticed it. Her foot was bare, and that she was trying to be as stealth-like as possible. _

"_Oh my…__ what do we have here?" A man voice coo-ed, while Mai could felt her body freezing mid-actions. Her heart thumping wildly against her ribcage as she cringe, feeling the foreign touch of a hand trailing down her exposed skin… and for some reasons, she felt cold all over. _

"_Takehito-sama, please let me go…" Mai felt herself whispering to the man and that was when she realized she was having this dream in a first person point of view. _

"_Let you go…?" The man named Takehito repeated, sounding quite amused although Mai could hardly find anything amusing that is – since all she feel now was unbidden fear._

"_No… I don't think so. Can't have you running off to my brother now...can we?" Takehito breathe as he speak close to Mai's earlobe, sending shivers down her spine. Not of pleasure, more of the cold clammy fear…_

"_No, please… Takehito-sama, don't do this to me…" Mai hear herself sprouting forth foreign words, things that she personally would not say under the same circumstances. If it was up to her alone, her best bet now was to pull her wand out and start hexing the man into hell and back. However, the truth is she was now trapped in another's body – whatever words tumbling forth from the lips of the person she was occupying the conscious, it was not in her control but the victim's. _

'_Damn… this is why I hated first person's dream… let's hope, I won't end up being 'killed' this time…' Mai thought inwardly to herself._

_The moment the thought passes through Mai's mind, she felt the hands of this Takehito man on her waist touching her from waist down. Slowly, inch by inch, the man started to reach to the inside of her thigh. _

'_What the hell…? Surely, he's not thinking of… Oh gods, he IS going to do it…__' Mai thought, __as she felt the man's fingers brushing against the inner thigh tracing patterns on her sensitive skin. She was no fool if by now she still had not make any sense out of the man's actions and her fear for the former – she could jolly well kill herself and be done with it. _

"_My dear Ayaka… you sm__elt so heavenly…Do you know?__" The man whispered trailing kisses down the __exposed neck of Mai. _

"_No…please, Takehito-sama…" Mai found herself pleading with the man, tears rolling down her cheeks now. From fear or humiliation, she had no idea._

"_Let you off the hook…? I don't think so, after all – I wouldn't want you running off to that brother of mine for comfort and protection. Not after all that troubles I've gone through to simply get you here…" The man's voice hardens to the edge, as anger taking over his emotional state – causing him to yank Mai by the hair roughly. _

"_Ah…" Mai unwillingly winced in pain, before she felt the sting of a slap closing in on her. The slap was so forceful that it knocked the wind out of her, sending her crashing into the wall behind. Disoriented from the concussion made when the back of her head collided with the wall, Mai tried to stand only to fall back down again. _

"_No…" Mai whimpered and cowered in fear, when she felt the man forcefully removing the clothes o__ff her. The rip of cloth tearing up further strengthen the notion of what was to happen in time to come, unbidden tears came rolling down from the eyes as shame and humiliation feel flooded through her senses. _

"_Gods, No… please…somebody saved me. Gene…Naru…please get me out from this place!" Mai yelled out in her mind, her words coming out in a plea now. _

_The ability to see the past through dreams was good skills to have on hand, but the ability to not only see, but feel and experienced firsthand was also a living night-mare at times. Mai was getting desperate now, she tried to kick against her assaulter but the fact remained that this body was not hers' to control and she could only remained stuck in here while feeling the whole process of rape. Just when she was about to lose all hopes and mentally braced herself for the feel of penetration, when the man forced himself on her. She felt herself being pulled out from the body of the poor victim, and heard the comforting tone of her dream guide's voice. _

"_Mai…Sorry, I tried to pull you out from there earlier on but the spirit wouldn't let me." The sound of Gene's voice flooded through the senses of Mai, assuring her of her safety as he allowed the brunette to cling onto him for her dear life. _

_Feeling her knees buckling under her, Mai slumped to the ground weakly. Gene, having been the one supporting her weight also followed suit in her actions, and kneeled down to her eye level. His mid-night blue orbs boring into Mai's brown ones, assuring her that everything would be alright now. Slowly, the light in Mai's orbs started to return as she finally calmed down after that traumatic ordeal experienced in her previous vision trip to the past. _

"_Gene…" Mai whispered__ slightly shakily._

"_Yes, Mai…" The elder twin of Naru responded his tone concerned. _

"_Was that man the ghost that haunt the site?" Mai asked, trying not to let her voice shakes. _

"…_Yes, he's one of them." Gene responded; still holding Mai in his embrace – as he comforted the girl in his own way. _

"_You mean there's more than one spirit here?" Mai questioned her tone more calming now as she was no longer crying like before. _

"…" _Gene said nothing but nodded, and then he asked. "Are you okay, Mai…?" _

"_I'll live… I always do…" Mai murmured softly to herself, to which – Gene merely sighed in response. _

"_You know, you could always rely on others for help… If you don't feel good about the case, then tell that idiot brother of mine to take you off the case. He would oblige, you know that – don__'t you?"_

"_Yes, I do know but it won't be without questions asked – isn't it?" Mai replied despondently._

"…_Mai, you have to tell them about what you see in the vision. Even if you don't feel comfortable repeating the incident, at the very least – you sh__ould let that idiot scientist brother of mine know. Can you promise me that?" Gene stared at Mai with a very serious expression, that reminded Mai of her school discipline master to a certain extent. _

"_Alright…fine, I promise." Mai answered, with an expre__ssion of resignation on her face._

"_Good, now wake up – I'll see you around next time." Gene smiled as he sends Mai back off to the reality plane. _

Mai woke up to find herself on the couch in the base, sitting up swiftly from her lying position – she was immediately blessed with the feel of light-headedness.

"Aww…" Groaning aloud, Mai hold a hand up to her head and massage it slightly trying to rid herself off the giddiness.

"Don't sit up so fast, I thought your dumb mind would have realized that little detail by now." The flat tone of Naru greeted Mai's conscious state, upon her rude awakening.

"…" Mai was too weary to argue with Naru, so she settled for a half-hearted glare instead. After waiting a few moments for the light-headed feeling to pass, Mai asked.

"What happened?"

"What else but the usual – with you falling asleep on your job. Lin found you sleeping in one of the hallways out in the western part of the facility, and brought you back an hour ago. While on the subject, Father Brown had been kind enough to complete the temperature taking task on your behalf. Do remember to express your gratitude to him, later on in time. So what did you see?" Naru asked towards the end of his words, causing Mai to stare at him in surprise.

"How did you know I'd seen something?" Mai asked, her eyes widening in surprise as she regarded that narcissistic boss of hers.

"Wasn't it you who claimed that you never sleep on your job, and when you did – you would most certainly dream about something?" Naru smirked, as he quoted Mai's exact words from previous cases experience.

Mai huffed in response as she threw Naru another glare of hers, but it never seemed to affect the stoic teen in any way. Eventually, she sighed and turned her eyes away from the narcissistic teen. She knew she was merely prolonging the inevitable, and that sooner or later she would have to retell the tale about what she experienced or see in that last vision to someone else.

"Mai, I'm still waiting for your recount of that dream which you had from before." Naru prompted, silently willing himself to be patient. Although, he had no idea what the girl had dreamt about – judging from the way Mai was crying silently throughout the 'dream' scene. It was enough to let him in on the fact that it wasn't anything pleasant.

"Do you need any tea to calm your nerves before retelling the tale?" Naru's question startled Mai back into reality plane.

"…No… it is fine, I didn't have a death dream or dream of anyone dying this time around." Mai shakes her head to decline about having tea to soothe her nerves.

Naru frowned, not comprehending Mai's words. If the brunette did not have a death dream, why was she crying during her sleep then? His bewilderment must have shown on his face, because the next thing he heard was the muttering of the term _'__idiot scientist'_ by his dead twin in his very own subconscious state of mind.

'What in the world…' Naru thought's was cut off when he heard the brunette opposite of him starting to speak.

"Naru, I can relate to you what happen in my dream before in details – but I need you to promise me one thing. Nothing that I told you can be reveal to a third party, at least spare them the details…I don't want any form of pity from the rest of them." Mai stated her expression serious and her tone flat lacing with a hint of steel.

"What is it exactly?" Naru prompted, wondering why Mai was so serious and adamant on the idea of not having the other members of the team knowing her dream content. This has never happened before in any of their previous case.

"I won't say a word until you promised me that." Mai refused to cave, not even when Naru glared at her.

'_Noll… just give her your word that you won't tell already!_' – Gene's voice sounded in the mind of the nineteen year old teen, again.

'_Gene…? What the hell…I mean why are you here…?_' Naru could felt his eyes widening without the need to look into a mirror, it has been 1 and a half year since he saw the vision of Gene's death and coming down here to Japan in search for his dead twin's body with Lin in tow.

All these while, no matter how he tried to call out for the elder boy through their psychic connection with one another – he could not get any response from the other party. Now his dead twin suddenly re-established that link between them, and it was for Mai's sake?! Just what in the world was going on between his clumsy assistant and that dead twin of his - which he had no idea about?! However, now with dozen of questions swirling about in his mind – Gene refuses to respond to any of them… this particular insight pissed Naru off to no end and yet there was nothing he could have done to turn the tables around.

"Naru, I am still waiting down here for your response. Are you going to promise or not?" Mai hissed out in frustration, completely irked by the fact of her narcissistic boss ignoring her all these while.

"…Fine, I give you my word that nobody will hear about this particular dream of yours. Now can you start your recount already?" Naru said, after pinching the bridge of his nose wearily.

And so, Mai started to recount her experience of being trapped in a poor victim of 'rape' – she describes the hallway she was in within the dream. Trying to provide as many details as possible, she cringes slightly when she reaches the portion of how rough the man – Takehito was with the victim – Ayaka, whom she had the misfortune to be occupying the body of. She also mentioned about the brother of Takehito who was only mentioned in words, she quoted all the dialogues exchanged between the rapist and the victim from her dream.

By the end of the whole recount, her face was wet with tears again. Only this time, she calmed as soon as she had gotten the worst portion of her dream out. Swiping at the tears angrily, Mai slapped herself on both sides of her cheeks to get her mind off the traumatizing ordeal that she went through in her dream from before.

This time around, Mai did not bother to reject Naru's offer of hot tea because she knew she needed that to soothe her nerves. If Gene's way of comforting was a friendly hug while allowing her to cry her eyes out, Naru's way of comfort would be settling her down with a cup of steaming hot tea. Of course, the tea offered by Naru now was anything but steaming hot – at the most, it was only by the standard of lukewarm. Mai supposed it was better than nothing, after all – beggars cannot afford to be choosers.

Date started: 2/2/2013

Date completed: 3/2/2013

Date edited: 4/2/2013

P.S: Thanks to Hikari Reizumi's review, I made some minor amendments in the structuring of the sentence. I'll go by the wikipedia suggestion on Ayako's name, going by Matsuzaki Ayako in future chapters :)


	7. Chapter 7 - Yukai Karaoke Suite Part 3

A/N: Plot bunnies won't leave me alone, so this story emerges. This is my first attempt at Ghost Hunt Fic.

Title: The Ups and Down in the Life of Taniyama Mai

Pairing: NaruxMai

Summary: Mai is not as ordinary as she appeared to be – she has a secret and a latest case taken by the SPR forces her to lay it out in the open. Follow her as she and the SPR gang carried on in their ghost hunting adventures… Eventual NaruMai.

Disclaimer: **Ghost Hunt is not mine, copyright belonged to Fuyumi Ono.**

**Author's Notes**: Fifth attempt at part 3… this is the best I could do already, so… just live with it eh. Can't do any better at this already.

**Reply to Hikari Reizumi**: Thanks for the review and the correction of the errors I made in there. I think the only names I keep on messing up is Ayako's. However, Mitsuzaki seems a little weird to me according to my knowledge of Chinese – Japanese translation of names. So I did a search on the web, and the internet listed the name of Ayako as Matsuzaki Ayako …I hereby decided to follow what the wiki-pedia listed. Thank you for Yasuhara's name too

Either way, a big big thank you for your review – it brighten up my day, really I'm glad you enjoy the fic so far, aside from my structuring errors and all… I hope this chapter is alright too.

Chapter 7 - Haunting at the Yukai Karaoke Suite 3

Mai was slowly sipping on her cup of lukewarm tea which Naru handed her after her recount of that particular traumatic dream of a 'rape' when the door to the base creaked open. Snapping immediate eyes towards the incomer, Mai was genuinely relieved to find the solemn Chinese man instead of the other members' of the SPR entering the room.

In particularly, Mai do not wish to have the monk and the self-claimed priestess finding her at this point of time. They would, no doubt, be kicking up a fuss when they see her puffy red eyes and then jump straight into the conclusion of blaming her current emotional distress on Naru.

Koujo Lin took in the sight of Mai's slightly puffy eyes from crying, and then slowly shifted his gaze to his 'ward' – Naru.

"She has a dream, that's all." Naru said, matter-of-factly.

"I see…" Lin responded.

"Lin, don't bother with the laptop. I've already gotten the information down from her recount just now, before you returned." Naru said.

Mai, having calmed down significantly from her recount of the dream plastered a smile back on her face as she made a move towards the table where the thermo flask was. Knowing that she has a tea-addict boss who cannot survive a day without the daily dosage of tea, upon receiving information about the water tasting weird on their case site – Mai had taken on the approach to boil water and make tea in the office on daily basis. Storing them in the thermo flask container, and bringing it over for Naru's consumption.

A quick glance at the time reflected on the laptop of Lin informed Mai that it was nearly time for dinner, and Mai decided to bring the thermo flask back to the office for a refill of tea as well as getting them dinner on the way.

"Taniyama-san…?" Lin started, when he noticed the brunette making a move to leave the base room with the bag containing the thermo flask that was running low on tea supply.

"I'm heading back to the office to get a refill of the tea; I might as well get us dinner on the way back. Was there anything that you would like to get for dinner, or I could pick on random whims?" Mai asked.

"There are a total of seven of us here, are you sure you can handle it all alone?" Naru eyed his clumsy assistant with skepticism, and ended up receiving a glare in return from the brunette.

"Exactly, there are only seven of us… I am quite certain I could handle both the tea and dinner sets for everyone even if I go out there alone with no helpers." Mai throws back sharply, her insecurity of passing through the hallways of the karaoke suite totally forgotten as she stalked out of the base without a backward glance.

"…" Naru stared at the now closed door of the base room, and shifted his eyes promptly to his other assistant.

"Lin…" Naru started; there was no need for him to finish that sentence because the Chinese man was already making a move to follow Mai down the hallway after receiving that 'look' from him.

Koujo Lin really had to hand it in to Naru; that boy really had no common sense in him. It has been eighteen months since they first started working with the brunette, and yet Naru's attitude towards Taniyama Mai still had not changed in the slightest bit. On the other hand, Taniyama Mai was another matter entirely.

Before Naru met Mai, he was empty without emotions. One could jolly well says that he was feeling lost without his twin's presence by his side. The first time Lin had seen any form of emotion in Naru was during their first case at Mai's high school, the look of surprise that flashes in the boy's eyes when the brunette commented on his smile being fake and followed by the decision to name him 'Naru the Narcissist' that brought a slight curl to his lips. Granted, it was due to Naru's musing over the irony of the situation that brought on the 'smile' or sort… it was still his first display of emotion since his twin' demise.

As time goes by, Lin could see that Naru had taken on to the idea to care for the brunette in a very special way. However, he knew Naru would definitely denied having any sort of feelings towards the brunette at this point of time – because they are only here in Japan on a particular quest. That is, to locate the missing body of Naru's twin and once they managed to find the body; they would have to leave Japan then.

Initially, Naru was quite focused on the quest but recently Lin noticed that the teen was focusing more on the cases than on their quest to search for Eugene's body. While Naru had claimed that he took up the cases to prevent being nagged by Taniyama, Lin wonders how true could that be.

"Taniyama-san…please waits up." Lin called out to the brunette, as he hurried to catch up with the girl.

"Lin-san…you are going to come along with me?" Mai blinked in surprise, she was half-expecting to see the monk or John catching up to her pace but definitely not the Chinese man.

"Naru just told me to pick up some documents from the office, so I figured I might as well come along with you." The Chinese man said, while Mai snorted inwardly knowing for a fact that Lin was lying through his teeth.

This case was a new one, and if her memory served her correctly. Naru haven't even started on the research work for this case yet. The SPR in Japan has only been around for one and a half years, and she has been there with them since their first case. There have been no similar cases prior to this, so there would be no archives records of case which they can get a referencing to. Where on earth could Lin retrieve those documents that are practically non-existent as of current? However, she decided to leave things be. Whether or not was Lin acting on Naru's orders matters not, what matters was that the members of the SPR do cares about her well-being and that is good enough for her now.

"Naru-bou, where's Mai?" Takigawa Houshou, the monk who had been going around the shopping centre to chat with other stores owner at other level came back from his trip to find his favorite brunette missing from sight asked.

"She went back to the office with Lin to get more tea, and also to get us dinner." Naru replied flatly, and promptly start grilling the monk for information.

"So what did you find out from the other stores owner?" Naru prompted.

"The store-owners on level three claimed that the flooding of the toilets were kind of common down here, especially over the recent twenty years or so. Apparently, the public toilets on other floors of this shopping centre also had mini-flood every now and then. I had double-checked with the janitors and they say every morning they have to do a major clean-up in the toilets. Somehow, during the night water would gushes out mysteriously flooding the place. At times, when it was severe – the corridor pathways for patrons to walk would also be affected."

"Owners of the level two stores says the same thing too, maybe the flooding problem isn't only limited to karaoke suite but the whole building in general." Matsuzaki Ayako, who was in charge of interviewing the level two shop owners, came in with more or less the same results.

"Shibuya-san, according to the store vendors on the ground floor…they says that business owners on the fourth floor always suffered the most loss. Most of them folded up the business within the period of two to three years due to tremendous loss. Apparently the Yukai Karaoke is the seventh businesses that set up their branch on level four of this shopping centre and most of the other stores-owners are keeping check on how long it will last down here." John Brown, the priest of Australian descent piped up then sharing his own share of information collected.

"What about the molesting and sexual assault issue? Did anyone else suffered from that phenomenon?" Naru questioned, looking at the trio.

The self-claimed priestess, monk and exorcist shared a common look between them before shaking their heads in unison and said. "No, the possessing phenomenon that led to the sexual assault of females has only taken place in here thus far. No one else had experienced that in this shopping centre."

Naru mulled over the information received from the trio for a moment of time, before he note down something in his black note book.

"Hara-san, did you managed to get anything from the spirits?" Naru voiced his doubts across to the kimono clad medium then.

"No…I can't get any decent emotions or words from them. However, I did sense a male spirit lingering in the western part of this karaoke suite. Something about him seems to be 'off', I wouldn't want to have anything to do with him at all." Hara Masako responded.

"I see…and what about the spirit responsible for the flooding, are you able to distinguish anything about it?" Naru asked.

"Sad to say aside from being able to tell that the spirit is a male, I can't get anything else from that spirit. The presence is too vague and faint for me to judge accurately, but I can't detect anything too malicious from it though. I get the feeling that he was trying to make a point, to get a point across to the public – I think." Hara Masako eventually concluded.

"The spirits were both males, you say?" Mai piped up from the entrance way to the base room, catching everybody's attention.

"Yes, they were both males – why?" The kimono clad medium raised an eyebrow up in question as she regarded the brunette critically.

"Nothing… just that…in my dream, there's a lady present in it. I simply wonder what happened to her, that's all." Mai managed with a tight smile.

"What…? You had a dream, Mai?" Matsuzaki Ayako and the monk both shifted their eyes onto Mai in surprise.

"Well…yes, I have one earlier on." Mai responded meekly.

"Why didn't you let us know?!" Ayako pressed on, frowning at the brunette in concern.

"Anyway, it's nothing – it wasn't a death dream." Mai responded, hoping that Ayako would leaves things be and stop pressing her for details of the dream.

"It wasn't a death dream, are you sure?" Ayako questioned, eyeing Mai critically as though judging if her words could be trusted.

"Yes, Ayako – it wasn't a death dream. I am quite sure of it, don't believe – you can check with Naru." Mai emphasized, flicking her glance over to where that narcissistic boss of hers' sat.

"Fine, I'll take your words for it…this time around." Ayako relented eventually, after losing her 'staring' match with the brunette.

"Jou-chan, where have you been?" The monk hurried over to shower Mai with another big bear hug that has her coughing and choking from the lack of air.

Irritated by the monk's actions, Mai used her elbow and rammed into the monk's stomach hard and successfully freed herself from the suffocating hug. Once she regained freedom, she glared at the monk for a while until the monk apologize for choking her, again before turning away from the man.

"You imbecile fool, I thought I told you more than once that if you cannot control your strength…don't go around hugging her. Are you trying to choke her to death?" Matsuzaki Ayako fumed as she rolls up a magazine she found on the coffee table in the base room and hit the monk on the head with it.

"Well, I apologized already. Didn't I? Some times I just forgot about it, and by the way can you stop hitting me with that? It hurts when being hits consecutively on the same spot, you know?" Takigawa Houshou throws back at the self-claimed priestess as he had taken to address as a hag on more than one occasion as he darted behind John to use the blond as a shield or sort against the infuriating woman.

"Matsuzaki-san, that is quite enough already. Don't you agree?" Lin cut in bringing a stop to the bickering couple antics, before he started to hand out the dinner bento sets to the occupants in the room.

Day 2 – Monday

Monday, being a regular school-day…Mai had been excused from the morning investigation by Naru. She was told only to report to the case site after she went through her routine lessons, since this case wasn't the usual out of town types. According to Lin, it would appear that her chemistry science teacher had ringed up the SPR office days after their last case about her low attendance and grades issue. The teacher had emphasized on the fact that she is a graduating student this year, and would appreciate if she did not missed out too much of her classes within the same month.

That was the ultimate reason behind Mai's current plight of sitting through a boring lecture on chemical reactions. Triple science subjects was Mai's subject combination for this year, suddenly she found herself envying Keiko and Michiru. The other two girls only have to do a combined science subject which happens to be Physics and Chemistry, while she on the other hand was going to do triple pure science subjects.

'_Damn…what on earth possessed me to pick such nightmarish subjects combination, anyway? Triple Science, Accounting, History and a combined Humanities subject of Geography and Social Studies. Topping it off together, there is still the core subjects of English, Mother Tongue (Japanese), and Elementary Mathematics__…_' Mai could not help but wonders.

A total of nine subjects, whereas Michiru and Keiko only needed to do seven of them… no wonder when her subjects combination were first known to the SPR team. Naru had wasted no time in expressing his skepticism on her brain capacity level, while Yasuhara patted her on the shoulders and told her 'good luck' with the choice she made in a tone that half-irritate her to no end.

The calendar on her student's handbook informed her that today's the 10th October, which meant it was term three to the school year already. In another six months or so, she would be required to sit for her year end papers and to decide on her future pathway to take. Up until now she has not been giving her future any consideration, and now as she stared down at the form surveying on their future prospect upon graduation… she felt lost.

Stuffing the form into her clear file holder, Mai packed up swiftly as she ready herself to leave the class for work.

"Taniyama-san please waits up for a moment."

Mai was halfway down the corridor-way that would takes her towards the staircase that led to the school's front foyer when she heard the sound of her homeroom teacher calling out for her. Turning around to face that former so as to not appear rude, Mai waited patiently until the lady teacher caught up with her by the side of the stairs.

"Yes, Yamanaka-sensei…?"

Yamanaka Miyako, a twenty eight year old freshly graduate from the Tokyo University, with a degree in Educational field was a recent addition to Mai's high school. Having been new in the school, she took pride in her work and was genuinely honored to be presented a graduating class as her form class this year.

She had taken the effort to get to know each and every student in her class on a personal scale, and over the past six months she had noted the way Taniyama Mai was often distracted or missing out on lessons. That worries her greatly, because she honestly believed that any students taking graduating examinations should be placing their studies as the top priority in life. She has been meaning to track Taniyama Mai down for a talk over the past month but was always unable to do so. However, today she was not going to let the brunette escaped from her 'talk' again. The discussion has been long over-due for some time now, in her opinion to say.

"Taniyama-san…I believed you and I have a lot to discuss about." Yamanaka Miyako cut straight to her point, eyeing Mai with intent.

"…Sure, let me just give my boss a call to explain the reason behind my delay. Will you?" Mai asked, but without waiting for a response on the teacher's part…she was already pulling her mobile phone out from her skirt pocket and dialing the number of Lin's mobile.

"Lin-san…I'm sorry to say that I will be late for today's work. My homeroom teacher was not going to let me leave without giving me her 'talk', do inform Naru about that – okay? I can't speak any longer; she's giving me looks of annoyance already." Mai said, and with that she hung up.

Over at the investigation site, Naru had just gotten his hands on the sales records of the past previous business owners who had their businesses sets up on level four of this particular shopping centre. Just like what the other business owners on lower floors says, the businesses usually cannot last through the third year. Usually, they wind up the business before the end of the third year due to the high amount of loss incurred during their operation period here. In order to do a more accurate cross referencing check, Naru had dig into the records of businesses conducted here on the fourth floor about thirty years back.

The sales records of the past seven business owners, excluding the current Yukai Karaoke Suite had quite a vast difference in them. Thirty years ago, there was only one business using this level and that is the 'Pesky Night Club'. It was set up in the 1950s and lasted all the way till the year 1989 before it winds up the business. The whole level four was then put up for lease until 1991 whereby a well-known franchise of music school decided to set up their branch here.

They operated here for about eight years, until the year 1998 that they folded up the business and shifted to the Mazuka Mall that was situated down the road. According to the staff who had worked at the branch here during that period of time, they suffered minor mishaps on their music books and scores carried in from abroad.

Somehow the water from the 'flood' would occasionally seeps into the stores wetting new scores that were on the lower shelving of the display cabinet. Otherwise, their instruments on sale here would be damaged by the water, but they chucked it up to the possible leakage of the pipes as it only happened once in a while. They never thought it to be of a haunting effect because they operate on short hours, and only from day time till evening hours.

The second business that operated their business here was from the period 1998 to 2001, it was a giant bookstore supplying textbooks to local schools. Seeing as books were their primary assets to the business, the flooding problem was indeed a very big headache for them to be dealing with. It started minor, the incidents but then it gradually grew to a point that the business owners can no longer stand it. Especially, when they would close the store for the night and comes back in the morning to find half of their books in the storage area wet. The damaged books in store put a huge dent in their profit figures, because it would mean they would have to sell those books away at real cheap price in order to fetch in money from it. Eventually, the owner was so sick of the happening and decided to shift.

The period 2001 to 2004 was empty, as probably nobody wanted to set up business here anymore after hearing the rumors about the piping leakage problem. It was until 2005 that the management of the shopping centre conducted a revamp on the interior of the whole shopping centre that business owner finally came back to set up branches here. The first company that set up business in here on the fourth floor was a gaming centre, but it wind up the business within the same year due to the management license being revoked by local police authorities.

Naru ran a check on the internet regarding the gaming centre and found some information that might be of use to their current case. Within the one year spend of the gaming centre operation here in Shibuya Shopping Centre…there has been over ten cases of teenagers brawling incidents, and two cases of raping issues. The public chucked it up to the work of rowdy and rebellious teenagers, and the two poor girls of the rape cases weren't even sympathize in any manner. Instead, they were being criticize by the public for being 'wild' because of their rebellious streak and if they want to prevent such incidents from happening, the least they could do was to stay home and behave properly instead of staying out late in the streets.

In addition to it all, the owner was found with possession of restricted drugs like the Ecstasy Pills. When consumed, would cause one's adrenaline level to go high and create hallucinations. The police managed to find the 'rapist' in possession of the pills, and simply assumed the rape incidents to be done under influence of the pills.

In 2007, a ladies' fashion boutique set up their business here and lasted until 2008. The reason provided by the owner was that they were unable to breakeven, and leave it as that. Anything else, they refused to reveal but according to the words of a staff employed by the said business then… the daughter of the owner was placed in a mental asylum after they ceased their operation of the business here. The reason behind the girl's mental instability was not revealed.

The fifth and sixth business owners were unreachable, and so Naru did not managed to get any clear information about the reason behind their decision to wind up their branch here. Next, Naru analyzed the sales figures of Yukai Karaoke Suite and noticed that this particular branch had indeed been incurring losses over the past year since their establishment. But it seems that they had quite a fortune behind for support, and so they were not threatening with the danger of folding up anytime soon.

The decision to approach SPR was decided by the manager – Yamamoto Kyousuke, himself. Apparently, he was well-trusted enough by the rightful owner of the business to make arrangements as he deemed fit.

Pinching the sides of his nose bridge wearily, Naru was about to call for tea when he realized Mai was nowhere in sight.

"Lin, where's Mai?"

"She called five minutes ago, and said she was held up by her homeroom teacher for a 'talk'." Lin responded, without shifting his glance away from the monitors.

"Call up Yasuhara, ask him to run a check on the Pesky Night-Club and its' owner. Dig through the records of the old newspaper for anything that happened during the year 1989." Naru instructed, deciding that the entire phenomenon started after the winding up of Pesky Night-Club so whatever that was haunting this place must have had something to do with that clubhouse, in one way or another.

"Also, call Mai and let her know she can have the rest of todays off. I'm calling it a day for today's investigation work, since the rest of them would not be able to come in due to work commitments either." Naru added, before making a move to leave the base.

"Naru, where do you think you are going?" Lin questioned, narrowing his eyes at his ward.

"Nowhere, I'm just going back home for a change of clothes then I will be back to watch the monitors with you for tonight." Naru responded dryly, he knew his 'guardian' must be worrying about the possibility of him running head-on into danger in order to gain useful information. However, the older man seem to have forgotten that he would only do that when he had a clear idea of what was happening, which he don't – at this moment of time.

Date started: 3/2/2013

Date completed: 5/2/2013

P.S: I swear this chapter kills my brain cells… I nearly yanked my hair out while working on this chapter, 5 total attempts in order to get it out.


	8. Chapter 8 - Yukai Karaoke Suite Part 4

A/N: Plot bunnies won't leave me alone, so this story emerges. This is my first attempt at Ghost Hunt Fic.

Title: The Ups and Down in the Life of Taniyama Mai

Pairing: NaruxMai

Summary: Mai is not as ordinary as she appeared to be – she has a secret and a latest case taken by the SPR forces her to lay it out in the open. Follow her as she and the SPR gang carried on in their ghost hunting adventures… Eventual NaruMai.

Disclaimer: **Ghost Hunt is not mine, copyright belonged to Fuyumi Ono.**

Chapter 8 - Haunting at the Yukai Karaoke Suite 4

Day 3 – Tuesday

Naru frowned, darting looks towards the time reflected on his laptop screen as he wondered what could have taken that clumsy assistant of his to take so long to arrive at the case site. From what he had been informed of, Mai's lessons for the day end at 2pm. The time now was 3pm; certainly the train ride from her school to their case site would not takes that long of time – right? So just what exactly had his assistant delayed in her arrival then?

While a certain narcissistic was worrying over the absence of his assistant, the said brunette in question was trapped in the hallway of the Karaoke Suite trying to fend off an attempted assault from the possessed waiter. The possessed young man was around twenty years old, with hair in the shade of dark chocolate lined with blond streak in them. Having not paying attention to the interviews conducted on day one of their investigation, Mai had some trouble in placing a name to the face.

However, having been subjected to more than one occasions of witnessing a potential possessed victim… Mai had no trouble discerning the fact that the young man was currently not himself. It could be seen from the glazed look in the young man's eyes, and also the creepy grin erect on the man's face.

'Thump, Thump…' Mai could easily hear her own heart thumping erratically behind her ribcage, while her eyes dart around for possible avenue of escape. Unfortunately, the hallway was too narrow and while it could allow several people to walk together towards the same direction in a group… it was not an easy feat to avoid being attacked as one passes by the other.

Mai kept her alerting eyes upon the man, her mind racing with the various possible ways to deal with the impending assault to come. While she had no idea why the possessed man had yet to strike, she hardly thinks the man was going to let her off the hook either. At most, the man was sizing her up trying to gauge her possible response to his assault later on in time.

Now Mai clearly have two options available, she could take the risk and kneel the man over using her kneecap to attack once the man inches closer to her or she could disregard the secrecy vow behind the rule of keeping magical powers a secret from general public and simply put the man in a full body-bind before anything else happens.

Meanwhile, the nineteen year old Yasuhara Osama was heading for the room to join the SPR gang when he chanced upon the sight of Taniyama Mai locking in a face-off with a fellow waiter of the place.

"Mai…?" Yasuhara called out to the girl out from habit with his usual tone of greeting.

The sound of Yasuhara calling out for the brunette's attention had successfully broke Mai's concentration on the man opposite of her, and that create a gap hole for the man to strike lunging for the brunette in an instant.

"Oh no…was that man possessed?" Yasuhara Osamu blanched, he has been filled in by Lin on the case situation when the elder man called him up and request for his help in gathering research data for the SPR. Henceforth, upon the first sight of the man's attack on Taniyama Mai…the nineteen year old teen immediately reaches for his mobile phone and press the redial number to Lin's mobile without hesitation.

Naru was jolted out from his thoughts rudely when the shrill ringing of Lin's mobile sounded loud and clears in the base room.

"What…?" Lin's response after answering the call was to throw a sharp look in Naru's direction, before hurrying towards the monitor screens.

"Naru, you are supposed to be watching the monitors…why haven't you notice the presence of Taniyama-san on screen all these while?" Lin eyed his ward strangely, but decided to drop the inquisition now. They had a brunette to rescue from a potential sexual assault…

Naru was initially puzzled by his silent assistant's words, but upon following the Chinese man's range of sight he was aghast by his lack of insight to check through each and every corridor hallways in details. The karaoke suite has lightings with dark tones, so it actually was not really working well with the cameras in place. Sometimes one would have to repeatedly zoom in on the screen in order to catch something… apparently, that little detail slipped his notice earlier on and hence resulting in Mai's current precarious situation of being trapped.

"Damn it…" Naru cursed before making his way out of the base mirroring Lin's actions from before.

The duos came running from the base with rapid steps, turning around the corner that led into the hallway Taniyama Mai was trapped with the intention to save the former from her assaulter only to find something unexpected. The possessed waiter was now lying in a heap on a spot opposite of the brunette unmoving, while Mai simply stared on in shock with her pointer pen outstretch in front of her pointing towards the direction of the man stonily.

Naru and Lin shared a common look among them-selves, ignoring the shell-shock figure of Yasuhara Osamu for the time-being and sprang into actions immediately. Lin headed for the unconscious man to check things out while Naru approached Mai gingerly. Judging from how Mai was behaving now, Naru was willing to bet against the fact that using magic on the assaulter was the last thing on Mai's mind and now she was in shock for what she had done from before.

"Oh god…I didn't mean to do that. Please let him be okay…" Mai was consistently repeating under her breath, rocking herself front and back trying desperately to soothe her fraying nerves. Naru knelt down next to the distraught female, and tried to call out softly to the girl drawing her attention to him.

However, Mai was too much in shock to respond to Naru's call… her mind was replaying the scene from before over and over again. Naru was right to assume that using magic on the assaulter was the last thing on Mai's mind because her initial thought was to knee the man over using her kneecap when the man comes closer to her position. She even had the distance between them calculated properly waiting for the moment to strike when one greeting from Yasuhara spoilt her whole plan, due to the distraction caused by the loud and cheerful greeting from the teen… the man had took chance of her distracted body stance to attack her.

Although she had tried to kick the man then, the attack was successfully dodged as the man lunged towards her. It was by pure chance that her wand had rolled itself out from the book she was holding in hand. Mai had been using the pointer as a bookmark of sort that afternoon while on the train journey down to Shibuya from her school, and the attack from the man had startled her so badly that her book had flown out from her hands and dropped unceremoniously onto the carpeted floor. Luckily, the floor of the karaoke suite was carpeted and hence stopping the pointer pen from rolling down the hallway giving Mai a chance to reach for it. Upon her first touch of her wand, Mai had reacted by pure instinct to lift her hands up and thought of the first spell that sprang forth into her mind.

A disarming spell used under defensive motion, it usually disarmed the opponent's weapons and wands swiftly and efficiently. Seeing as the man attacking her was not holding anything to attack her, the spell hits the man directly in the torso area and sends the man flying across the room due to the amount of magic Mai had instilled in her one attack. Her assaulter immediately hits the wall behind with a sickening sound of 'bang' and later dropped to a heap on the ground directly on the floor leaving Mai staring at the sight still in a shocking state of condition.

"Yasuhara-san, make your-self useful and go get the manager over." Lin instructed, heaving a momentary sigh of relief when he realized the possessed waiter was simply knocked out by the force of Mai's magic and not dead or seriously wounded.

"Mai, snap out of it already!" Naru heighten his tone of voice used on the brunette when it becomes apparent that Mai was failing to react to his rare moments of soft approach. Turns out, his snapping tone of voice was exactly what was required to get the girl back down to the reality plane as he found Mai slowly registering his presence by her side and sagged against him in relief.

Naru watched as Mai took several deep breaths before opening her eyes and questioned his other assistant on her assaulter's plight.

"Lin-san…I didn't do anything too damaging to him, did I?" Mai asked, still eyeing the unconscious figure lying in a heap opposite her warily as she made a move to stand. She was very much aware of Naru's close position behind her, probably on stand-by mode to catch her should her knees weakens and buckled under her weight.

"No, I don't think so. I believed that blast of yours only knocked him out cold…as for the actual degree of the damage done on him, I figured we would have to wait until he wakes before we can be certain of the fact." Koujo Lin replied, just as Yasuhara came back on site with the manager – Yamamoto Kyousuke in tow.

"Oh… there has been another assault, isn't it? Taniyama-san, are you alright?" The manager asked, looking at Mai in concern.

"Yes, I'm alright… we managed to knock him out before anything else happens. You might want to have him checked over by a professional though; I think he crashes a little too hard against that wall behind him. There might be a likelihood of him suffering from a mild concussion after that." Mai told the manager in an apologetically manner, keeping away the information that it was actually her that sends the possessed young man crashing into the wall.

Yasuhara stood by the side, flicking glances towards Mai all the time while the brunette simply chooses to ignore him for the time-being. Mai knew what the other teen was itching to ask her about, but honestly she felt it necessary for her to be back at the base with at least a cup of tea in hand to settle her nerves before she launched into the explanation behind her 'powers'.

Moments later, when Mai was settled comfortably in the base room with Ayako and the monk flanking her side. The brunette took a sip of the lukewarm tea she had taken the liberty to pour for herself from the thermo flask, she launched promptly into her tale of how she ended up running smack into the possessed young man.

Long story short, while she was on the way over to the base… she was overcome by the sudden urge to visit the washroom. Seeing as it was apparent that the haunting of the toilets does not merely affected the karaoke suite, but the other toilets on other levels too… Mai figured it would not hurt to simply use the ones on the fourth floor instead. What she failed to take into consideration was that the assaults usually took place in the hallway where the toilets were located, and that the ghost enjoys picking young girls like her to 'play' with.

"Okay… so Mai, what was that cool stunt you pull on that guy just now?" Yasuhara Osamu asked, eagerly. He had been bursting with anticipation all these times, if it was not for the fact that Naru had insisted upon getting Mai's reason being for in that hallway before anything else… he would have put forth his question towards the brunette from the point they entered the room which they were using as the base for the investigation work.

"Huh…? Oh, you mean that…" Mai commented dryly, before adding. "It wasn't PK just so you know; it was a non-verbal magical defense spell."

"You mean its magic?" Yasuhara sounded quite surprise by Mai's words, and the brunette sighed and pulled her pointer pen out from her skirt pocket again. This time, she pointed it towards some notes lying around the room and directs them to pile up nicely on the table where Lin's laptop has been rested upon.

"Wow… that was some wicked ability you could do…" Yasuhara mused, his eyes glinting dangerously as he seemed to be cooking up some ploys in that cunning mind of his.

"No, I am not going to use my powers to prank anyone for you." Mai said in a tone that leaves no room for discussion, and Yasuhara once again went into one of his dramatic performance until Naru cut him off by demanding results to his research work.

"Well, yes… according to what I've found. Pesky Clubhouse established during the 50s by Takahashi Takeshi, a local tycoon businessman during that period of time. The business was later co-managed between his two sons – the elder Takehito and the younger Hayato." Yasuhara said, as he handed over the printouts he had managed to somehow attained through his unconventional way of researching methods.

Apparently, the two brothers were not always on good terms. In fact, their relationship with one another could be classified as 'strain'… and the rift between them grew when the songstress Hideyoshi Ayaka came into the picture. Rumors have it that the songstress had captured the attention of both the Takahashi siblings, and a fierce competition vying for the lady's attention was start between them.

"Okay… so what does it have to do with this case?" Ayako questioned, still bewildered by Yasuhara's presentation of the research data. That teen was narrating his findings like some gossiping paparazzi reporters' trying to bait readers' interest, and it was getting on the red-haired doctor cum self-claimed priestess' nerves.

"It is related to the case because Takahashi Takehito's ghost is the one possessing these male patrons and waiters in here." Mai interjected then, drawing Ayako's attention on her.

"How could you be certain about that?" Ayako asked.

"I am certain of it because my dream guide told me so… and besides, I came across the scene of Takehito harassing that songstress Ayaka in my last dream." Mai responded matter-of-factly, withholding the fact that what she saw was actually a rape scene in Ayaka's point of view rather than just a mere harassing act.

"Well… if our dear Mai sees it in her dream, then it would be best to take her words for it. Since her dreams has never sends us off in the wrong direction before…" The monk interrupted before Ayako could press the brunette for more information.

"What about the flooding incidents…? Masako mentioned the spirits both being males, could it be that the other spirit was that brother of this Takehito guy?" Ayako questioned then.

"That…I had no idea, now let us listen to what Yasuhara still have to say about them... shall we?" Mai said as she directed her gaze back towards the research helper.

"Right… I wasn't sure what happened to Takahashi Hayato later, because it seems like he just went missing out of a sudden in the year 1989. Whereas, the songstress Hideyoshi Ayaka committed suicide a month before Takahashi Hayato's disappearance acts. As for Takahashi Takehito, he was rumored to have gone crazy after the songstress death and was placed in the mental asylum since then. He later died in the year 2003 from colon cancer…" Yasuhara ended his explanation.

"How did people discover his mental disability then?" Mai asked out from curiosity, she was certain that Yasuhara had that information stash away somewhere and it could be a crucial point to solve the mystery.

"Apparently, he was in a state whereby he had gone after all the female patrons and workers in the clubhouse calling them Ayaka and attempted to touch them in a sexual manner. That was when the workers decided that he was crazy and called in the professionals from the mental asylum to attend to him." Yasuhara responded.

"…You don't happen to have a picture of that songstress on you now, do you?" Naru questioned out from the blue, while Yasuhara grinned in a manner that had Mai rolling her eyes at his looks of glee.

"As a matter of fact…I do have it." Yasuhara said, pulling out the profile with the songstress picture on it and passes it around for everyone to take a look before handing it over to Naru.

"Well…at least I should be glad that I wasn't targeted explicitly for this case, then?" Mai was flooded with the sense of relief upon noticing the fact that she looks nothing like the victim this time around. Over their last few cases, she had occasionally chanced upon situation that she was made the subject of main terrorizing from the ghosts due to her looks resembling the ghosts' tormentors in the past. During that few cases, she was often losing sleep due to her fear of being killed in the dreams or that someone will attempt murder on her while she slept.

_Mai sighed in resignation when she noticed the fact that she was once again on the astral plane, inwardly she was grateful that she wasn't dump straight into the vision for this time around. Looking around her surrounding, she tried to locate her dream guide – the twin of her boss. _

"_Gene, where are__ you?" Mai called out, too lazy to search for the former using her naked eyes. She blamed it on the teen's tendency to camouflage in the dark and then reappearing in front of her as an attempt to scare the shit out from her. _

_I'm over here." Soon, Mai heard the familiar sound of Gene speaking up and she started to head over to where she thought she heard the sound from. _

_Gene was standing in front of a bright spot and pointing her towards the direction where the spot of light was. _

"_Something for me to see again…?" Mai asked, not expecting any response but Gene still nodded towards her despite it being a rhetorical question. _

"_Well… here goes anything, let's just hope it wasn't another rape dream." Mai muttered under her breath as she braced herself for the past vision to come._

_It was not another rape dream, but one that was sets in the office of the night-club or sort. Despite being unable to pinpoint the location, Mai just have a feeling that insisted upon her that this was the office of Takehito. There were two men involved in the scene; they were both heated in an argument. _

_An argument that involved the songstress, Mai surmised when she kept noticing the mention of the said female's name. _

"_You bastard, you raped her – didn't you? That's why she committed suicide last month…__" Takahashi Hayato __accused, and if looks could kill…_

"_Don't say it in that manner…It's your fault, if it isn't for you…She would have succumb to me by now!" Takehito snarled. _

"_What kinds of bull-shit theory was that?! How__ could you claim to have loved her when all you did was to repeatedly try and force yourself on her?! She ran to me because she was scared of you, not because she has romantic feelings for me!" Hayato tried to reason, but it was failing utterly as Takehito was too damn set in his mind that it was his brother's fault that causes Ayaka's rejection of his feelings. _

"_NO! It was your fault." Takehito insisted upon and in a moment of agitation, he threw his files and folders all towards his brother's direction causing the man to dodge as he tried to avoid being hit in the face. _

_Mai allowed a gasp of shock to escape her when she noticed Takehito reaching for a fruits knife and then lunging for Hayato. The two men battled fiercely; with Hayato trying to remove the knife from his agitated brother's hand and Takehito trying to stake the knife through his brother's heart. The two men fought for the upper hand in the fight, but it seems like Takahashi Hayato runs out on luck and tripped carelessly over an ornament that was threw in his previous direction in his brother's fit of anger and before he knew it… he was staked by the knife in Takehito's hands. _

_Initially, he managed to kick his brother's away using his leg while he scrambled away from the crazy Takehito's reach. However, he should not have his back turned against his agitated brother… before Takehito took that opportunity to strike again. This time, there was no escape for the other brother as the knife was stabbed in one of the more fatal point of a human's body. _

_Mai watched wide-eyed as the figure of Takahashi Hayato slumped down to the ground slowly, whereas Takehito seemed to be unfazed by what he had just did to his own sibling and simply stared on as though waiting for his brother to bounce back up on the foot again. Once it became apparent that Takahashi Hayato was indeed dead and not going to come back up…Takehito started to panic for a moment before he goes still in his actions again. A demented look seeps into his eyes, as he seemed to have arrived at some brilliant ideas. _

_Taniyama Mai fought the urge to retch upon the sight of how Takahashi Takehito had tugged the body of his dead brother behind him as they reached the kitchen area of the clubhouse. She watched as Takehito took a gigantic trash bag out from a corner of the room, and then retrieves a large butchering knife from the kitchen counter top. Mai forced herself to look on as Takehito worked to butcher his dead brother into several parts, before dropping them all bloody and disgustingly into the trash bag by the side and then he dumped the butchering knife within the same bag. Tying a knot on the bag, he tugged it out of the clubhouse heading for the emergency exit and up the stairs towards the roof. _

_Mai's eyebrow twitches uncontrollably as she noticed how Takehito took it upon himself to remove the cover to the water tank container atop of the building and promptly dropped the trash-bag containing the weapon and his brother's dead body into the container itself. Slowly, the demented Takehito shifted his glance towards where Mai was and smiled cruelly. By the count of three mentally, Mai screamed and woke up promptly back in reality plane. _

Mai wakes up heaving and chest panting for breath, a quick look around told her that she was in her room at her flat. Something crept her out in the last scene, was Takehito smiling in her direction? It shouldn't be, but it seems like it… It was a dream, what happened in there were visions of the past – Takehito should not have seen her at all… unless it was the ghost of him in the vision together with her.

A shiver traveled down her spine as she ran a hand through her hair wearily, but she highly doubted she could sleep again after what she just saw. The memory of what happened before came rushing back to her and she found herself emptying her stomach right onto the floor beside her bed, filling her room with the smell of vomit.

"Damn…" Mai muttered aloud to no one in particular, flicking her pointer wand to her dressing table she levitate the tissue box on it over to her bed and wipe the side of her mouth with a piece of tissue paper. And then, she cleansed up the mess of her vomiting substances on the floor and charms her room to smell of lavenders. The time now was 3am in the morning; she had no qualms of cleaning her house at this hour of time.

Forgoing the idea of sleep, Mai grabbed the cheesy romance novel from her bedside table and flicked on the lamp in the room as she read through the chapter she had stopped the other time. Romance novels often sounded too cheesy for her liking, but at this moment of time she just wanted to do something to rid her mind from the scare in her last dream.

The first thing Mai did when morning comes around was to call up Lin, she felt bad about disturbing the elder man from his sleep but she thought the dream could not be delayed further. The sooner she relayed the information, the earlier they could solve the case and be done with it. She had no intention to find herself being the victim of Takehito's next raping deed…

The case was successfully solved by Naru over the next two days, Mai had requested for the break using the excuses of school projects work. She had no idea what Lin had told Naru after she relayed her latest dream information to the Chinese man, but she was glad that Naru did not make any sarcastic remarks when she claimed that she needed time off from that case of theirs. It seems like they eventually choose to exorcise the spirit of Takehito because he was too far gone in the mind to be saved and Masako refuses to conduct a séance on Takehito's spirit for some unfathomable reasons.

Hayato's spirit on the other hand, has moved on smoothly after his body had been uncovered by local police who had been called in to search the water tank atop of the building. That was followed by an order to demolish the shopping centre, and compensation amount being given to relevant stores owners to shift their business elsewhere as the building would need to be demolished and rebuilt for other purposes.

If anyone was surprised by Mai's lack of interest to find out how the spirit was actually exorcise, they did not find it their position to inquire.

Date started: 3/2/2013

Date completed: 7/2/2013

P.S: Finally case 2 over… pardon the lack of details on how the case was wrapped up, because my mind refuses to cooperate on that. Again, reviews are appreciated. Take this as Chinese New Year present eh? XD


	9. Chapter 9 - Paranormal or Magical

A/N: Plot bunnies won't leave me alone, so this story emerges. This is my first attempt at Ghost Hunt Fic.

Title: The Ups and Down in the Life of Taniyama Mai

Pairing: NaruxMai

Summary: Mai is not as ordinary as she appeared to be – she has a secret and a latest case taken by the SPR forces her to lay it out in the open. Follow her as she and the SPR gang carried on in their ghost hunting adventures… Eventual NaruMai.

Disclaimer: **Ghost Hunt is not mine, copyright belonged to Fuyumi Ono.**

Author's Notes: Case 3 is not a haunting case, and with Mai as the investigation leader. XD

Chapter 9 – Case 3: Magical or Paranormal? Part 1

"Mai, Tea."

The brunette assistant of the SPR office was rudely awakened from her thoughts on how to answer an essay question for her geography assignment, when Naru entered the office an hour later than usual on a Sunday morning.

"Okay, okay… I'm coming." Mai responded, as she hurried to jot down some key-point of the essay question before bustling into the kitchen to make that tea which her boss had ordered minutes ago.

Approximately fifteen minutes later, Mai entered Naru's office with his requested cup of tea in hand. Placing down the tea-cup on the desk of Naru, Mai stood by the side and waited for something she knew would never happened when she heard it. The term 'Thank You' that usually was the last thing to be heard from the stoic teen's lips, directed towards her no less.

"What did you say?" Mai snapped wide alarming eyes to her boss in shock.

"I said thank you, what else do you think I'd said?" Naru arched an eyebrow in question, as he took in the dumb look on his assistant's face.

"What brought it on?" Mai eyed her boss suspiciously, Naru never said 'thank you' unnecessarily. That narcissistic boss of hers' had never thanked her before, so it does not make any sense for the former to suddenly change his way of treatment towards her.

"I have received a case from Madoka's request." Naru said then, changing the topic of conversation abruptly.

"And…?" Mai prompted, something told her that it won't be anything good and that she should be mentally prepared for it.

"I want you to handle it." Naru responded, throwing out the bombshell piece of information onto Mai's lap as though it was nothing.

"I beg your pardon…?" Mai repeated, staring at her boss as though the nineteen year old narcissistic teen had gone crazy out of the sudden. Honestly, a case for her to handle and to lead in the investigation? The last time she checked, she was no investigator but a mere administrative assistant to Naru. So what the hell happened and why her roles and duties were changed so abruptly and without prior warning in advance?

"You heard me the first time." Naru responded his tone flat without emotions, making it hard to gauge his reason behind his odd behavior.

"Excuse me for asking this, but I wasn't aware I had the capability to handle cases on my own just yet. As far as I am concern, my job entails administrative work and other miscellaneous duties assigned on a case site. I haven't had any experience in leading investigation, in case you've forgotten." Mai reminded her tone sharp and sarcastic.

"You did well enough for the Yukimura case, isn't it?" Naru pointed out simply, while Mai rolled her eyes in response to it.

"That is not a typical case to say, because it involved magic. Besides, I did not do much except to quote off information for it and to make you tea on daily basis." Mai interjected, matter-of-factly.

"Well, in that case just treat this as an opportunity to prove to me your capabilities at handling it on your own." Naru argued, as he forced the folder containing the latest case he received into the brunette's hands not giving Mai the chance to reject his order.

"Fine, but enlighten me on this little thing. What prompts you to take on the case and not handling it yourself?" Mai arched her eyebrow up in skepticism, because this whole thing is too surreal that Mai had no idea what to make of it.

"I didn't want to take it; there is nothing interesting in the case for me to accept. However, this is a case brought to our attention by Madoka. And she refuses to take 'No' for an answer, Lin gathered we should just accept the case and let you handle it." Naru responded calmly.

"Lin suggested for me to take the case?" Mai frowned, inwardly wondering what could be the reason behind the Chinese man's decision for her to handle the case.

With that, Mai took the folder containing the client's information and general description of the problems they encountered and left Naru's office for Lin's. Knocking twice on the Chinese man's office door, Mai entered the room after being addressed by the former.

"Anou…Lin-san, I was just told by Naru that I will be handling a case myself this time around?" Mai asked, waving the folder in her hands as she started with some slight hesitation.

"Ah, yes…I was just wondering when Naru would be informing you of that." Lin mused, as he could still recalled his ward's skepticism when he told the boy to leave it in Mai's capable hands if he had no intention of handling it himself after agreeing to take on the case due to Madoka's endless pestering.

"Well… he says you recommended for me to take on the case." Mai started next, looking carefully at the Chinese man while she gauges the man's response to her words.

"Indeed, it was me who suggested you for the job." Lin told the brunette, successfully getting a look of absolute bewilderment from the said female.

"Don't mind me asking this, but why…?" Mai questioned.

"You mean why did I suggest you to take this case yourself or why did Naru accepted the case if he wasn't interested in it in the slightest bit?" Lin asked back in return.

"The former… I know enough to gather that Naru can't really say 'No' to Madoka-san. My question is why I am being placed as the lead investigator in this case…Even that case with the Urado, Naru was the one running the show from behind while Yasuhara was entrusted with the task of posing as him." Mai pointed out, objectively.

"Have you taken a look at the case file pertaining to the client's recount yet?" Lin arched an eyebrow up in question, as he regarded the brunette coolly.

"Erm…no, I haven't. I came directly over from Naru's office." Mai responded.

"In that case, I suggested for you to take a look at the case file first. And then we will speak again." Lin told Mai in a tone that leaves her with no room for argument.

Mai exited the Chinese man's office with the case file in her hands, still in a daze-like manner. Taking a deep breath, Mai braced herself for the content of the file and flipped it open. She was half-way through the client's recount of the incident before she found her lips twitching uncontrollably as she fought against the urge to slap the file closed.

'No wonder Naru doesn't feel like taking on the case at all, this is hardly considered a real case…Honestly, and I don't get what's the fuss about. This seems more like a typical magical occurrence rather than paranormal incident…' Mai was thinking to herself, no wonder Lin had suggested putting her in charge as the lead investigator for this case.

Tucking the case file away for the time-being, Mai decided to get her geography essay done before heading back to Lin office for the discussion to come. Fifteen minutes later, she re-entered the Chinese man's office with the case file and said.

"Lin-san…I've just read through the whole file, and now I believe I know the reason why Naru has been reluctant to take on the case. This isn't exactly a case that he would prefer to handle indeed… knocking sounds coming from the attic, things floating about in the nursery where the daughter of the client slept, the doors opening by itself without anyone opening it and also the moving of the portraits figures. It sounds more like a typical magical occurrence instead of a haunting thing." Mai concluded.

"My sentiments exactly, but unfortunately… Madoka insisted upon us checking things out there. To make sure we don't slack off in our duties, she's personally flying over to keep an eye out on our work tomorrow morning." Lin commented dryly.

"Eh…?! Madoka-san is coming over? But… would Naru be in trouble for passing this case over to me instead of him handling it himself?" Mai exclaimed first in surprise, and then her expression turned into one of worry and uncertainty.

"Taniyama-san… leaves the explanation task to Naru and me to handle. You just concentrated on the case will do." Lin told the brunette firmly, and then both of them started to go over the case file discussing among them-selves on how many equipments they should be bringing and setting up over at the client's place.

Day 1 – Thursday

Due to the nature of this particular case being quite peculiar as compared to the others that they had had before, after discussing between themselves… Mai and Lin had come down to an agreement of not involving the other SPR members, and simply relied upon themselves to solve the case.

With Madoka involved in the case as well, they would not be requiring the help of Yasuhara for this case either. Lin and Naru would be there guarding the monitors as per normal, while Mai handled the rest of the investigation process for this particular case.

The estate they would be investigating was a two-storey semi-detached terrace house belonging to the Miyamoto family. The client – Miyamoto Chihaya is a fellow friend of Madoka back in her university days in Cambridge, UK.

Miyamoto Chihaya used to reside in Australia until recently, when news reaches her about her father-in-law's death. Basically, that was when she decided to move her family back here to Japan to stay for good. Her husband, Miyamoto Shinchirou had shifted back here to Japan about one month before she arrived with their twenty month old daughter – Haruko.

It seems like such incidents has always been happening since her father-in-law's death, and she had tried to bring up the issue to her husband's knowledge but the former always cast aside her worries and claimed her to be suffering from some illusionary images. However, she was quite certain about what she had seen along the hallways about how the pictures of her husband's ancestors had moved about. The last straw that sends her calling up Madoka for help was when she nearly had a heart attack after witnessing how her daughter was floating at least two meter high from the crib without anyone supporting the weight.

When the SPR black van turned into the client's estate driveway, the expression on both owners' features was a complete opposite. Miyamoto Chihaya's features reflected utter relief, while her husband, Miyamoto Shinchirou was the exact opposite. In fact, the husband seems like he detested each and every minute of being here on the front porch welcoming the SPR investigators into his ancestral home.

"Come on, you people are the men… so unloading equipments should be your job." Madoka announced, pulling Mai away as she approached her university friend.

"Chihaya…!" Madoka greeted, engulfing the client into a warm embrace of greeting.

Miyamoto Chihaya mirrored Madoka's enthusiasm at the greeting, before she proceeded to introduce the husband to both Mai and Madoka.

"Madoka, you haven't had the chance to meet my husband…I believed. This is my husband, Miyamoto Shinchirou." Chihaya beamed at Madoka as she introduced them to one another, totally disregarding the look of mild irritation on her own husband's features.

"Chihaya-chan, is your husband treating you well?" Madoka must have noticed the look of annoyance on the man's face because Mai could have sworn she heard the former inquiring their client about how Miyamoto Shinchirou was treating her.

The rest of the conversation between Chihaya and Madoka, Mai had opted to tune out of it. Instead, she closed her eyes and allowed her senses to run wild and free about the estate.

'No sinister spirits hanging around, nothing too dark and dangerous here too… Good, that means this case could be wrapped up real soon. Hm.m… there's a shadowy feel up in the attic, probably the culprit behind the sound of knocking every night. It should not be of any dangers, since I can't detect any malicious intent from it…' Mai thought, as she opened her eyes and focused her attention elsewhere instead.

"Here's the room for the base, I hope it suits your purpose." Chihaya's voice jarred Mai out from her thoughts, as she focused her attention towards the room that was now in front of her.

The room was spacious enough to fit twenty over people, and judging from the layout of the room… Mai was willing to bet that this used to be a family lounge or sort for the family. One thing about old westernized building is that they tend to have a sitting room and another spacious room to be used as a family lounge on the same level. Bigger estates might even comes equipped with a ballroom, with the mansion separated into separate wings… but luckily this particular estate was not one of those that are huge.

"Yes, this room is good enough for us." Mai responded on behalf of Naru and Lin, who are now silently moving the equipments into the base. Although, the narcissistic teen had on a look of utmost displeasure and Mai was quite certain that if it was not because of Madoka's presence… she would be the one moving the equipments in instead of Naru.

"Chihaya-san, do you mind gathering your helpers together? If it is not too much of a hassle, we would like to start getting the interviews done now." Mai interrupted, bringing a stop to the ongoing conversation between Miyamoto Chihaya and Madoka Mori.

"Sure, it's no hassle at all." Miyamoto Chihaya responded, as she shifted her glance towards her husband and with a death glare of hers' – the man went off presumably to gather the staffs working in the estate to come around for the scheduled interview session.

"Mai, Tea." Naru ordered, while Lin set up his laptop for the interview to come in time.

"Okay, okay… I'm on my way to get your tea ready. Do remember to ask the correct set of questions, okay?" Mai reminded. The interview questions for this particular case were brainstormed by Lin and her together as a team, tailored for magical phenomenon.

Naru usually had the tendency to ask questions on a whim, and that is usually how he conducted the interviews from other cases too. However, for this particular case…Mai had specially came up with a list of possible questions to ask and they usually are used to prompt the witness to recount the phenomenon in detail because judging from how the magical phenomenon are like – it can be extremely hard for the witness to put their experience into words.

"Chihaya-san, do you mind showing me to your kitchen area?" Mai asked, wondering whether it was a good idea to leave Madoka behind in the same room as Lin and Naru.

After all, she had arrived this morning to find them glaring daggers at one another in the office. Something about Naru not showing her respect or was it Naru not placing enough attention on the case? Mai can't remember exactly, all she knew was that Madoka later approached her with well-wishes for her first case of being lead investigator and making some promises about promoting her to junior investigator if she can solve the case professionally and without any hiccups along the way.

"Definitely, the kitchen's this way…" Miyamoto Chihaya then started to lead Mai out from the base room and down the corridor hallway.

Once Mai was out of the picture, Madoka threw another glare towards her student's direction before she settled herself down on the sofa armchair with her arms cross defensively in front of her chest area and huffed.

"Mai-chan is too good to you."

"…" Lin eyed the irate woman with pinkish purple hair from the corner of his eyes, but had wisely remained silent upon the woman's statement. There was no way that he was going to involve himself in an argument between Madoka and Naru…

Just as expected, Naru chooses to ignore Madoka's remarks which only added on to Madoka's infuriated mood.

"If I am in her shoe today, I would have told you to get those tea yourself since she was supposed to be the lead investigator today, isn't it?!" Madoka threw back in a sharp retort.

Again, silence was her only response and that was when Madoka finally give up on the idea of baiting a response out from her stubborn student. Eventually, she chooses to change the subject of conversation bringing up her student's ultimate quest instead.

"How's the quest coming along?" Madoka asked, no longer upset now.

Madoka had by now figured out if she had the time to get upset by Naru's attitude towards her, she might as well spend time doing more research work instead. That boy could drive anyone nuts with that 'high-and mighty' attitude of his…

"Nothing much…we are still looking into it." Lin responded on behalf of Naru, whose features took on a sullen look by now.

"It's been eighteen months over already… although, they did not voice their comments aloud but I know the professors are getting worried about the lack of news from you two." Madoka commented.

"I'm not giving up." Naru muttered under his breath.

"There's still another two months before the deadline approaches, are you certain you would be able to find Gene by then?" Madoka prompted, causing Naru to glare at her in response.

A sharp intake of breath from the outside of the base room causes three sets of eyes to glance over in response, only to find the brunette struggling to keep the tea-set balanced on the tray she had taken the liberty to borrow from the Miyamoto's kitchen.

"Mai-chan… is everything alright there?" Madoka voiced out, heading over to assist Mai in bringing in the tea-set.

"Yeah… I just accidentally scalded myself with the hot tea that spills out when I nearly stumbled and fall just now." Mai responded, trying her best to remain unfazed but inside she was half-tempted to demand the trio to stop being so secretive and come out with the information relating to Gene already.

Yet, she knew this was hardly the time for her to bring up the issue of Gene for discussion… because that would mean she have to explain how she knew Gene to the three of them too. While she could simply dropped the information of Gene being her dream-guide, it still does not explains how she knew Gene… because of her ability to separate Gene from Naru in her dream would mean that she knew both of them on a personal scale. Now that was something she would be having trouble explaining, because of her fuzzy like memory.

Feeling the urge to yell, Mai bites the inside of her cheeks to restrain it with the best of her control and settled for glaring out of the window and took several deep calming breath instead.

'_Gene… you'd better not appeared in my dream tonight, if not… I'll be damn if I let you off the hook so easily again_.' Mai was thinking to herself inwardly, vowing to get some answers out from the elder Davis twin if she managed to meet the former tonight in her dream-land.

Date started: 7/2/2013

Date completed: 11/2/2013

P.S: This would not be one of those real happening cases, but I'm aiming to have Mai and Gene interact in the dream scene later… Mai may or may not found out how Gene died, but Gene is definitely going to present her with some answers.


	10. Chapter 10 - Paranormal or Magical

A/N: Plot bunnies won't leave me alone, so this story emerges. This is my first attempt at Ghost Hunt Fic.

Title: The Ups and Down in the Life of Taniyama Mai

Pairing: NaruxMai

Summary: Mai is not as ordinary as she appeared to be – she has a secret and a latest case taken by the SPR forces her to lay it out in the open. Follow her as she and the SPR gang carried on in their ghost hunting adventures… Eventual NaruMai.

Disclaimer: **Ghost Hunt is not mine, copyright belonged to Fuyumi Ono.**

Author's Notes: Continuation of where I left off last chapter…

Chapter 10 – Case 3: Magical or Paranormal? Part 2

_Taniyama Mai stood in the dark astral plane site glaring about her surrounding, with her arms crossed at the front of her chest and her shoe tapping the surface of the unseen ground in irritation. The astral plane was just as how she recalled it to be, full of darkness surrounded by the frequently seen wills o the wisps. Still, the brunette was getting kind of irritated by the lack of something or rather someone here with her. _

"_EUGENE DAVIS, by the count of three... you jolly well come out from wherever you are hiding. If not, I'll be marching up to that t__win of yours to demand an explanation out from him." Mai allowed a low growl to escape from her lips, as she threatens the air around her. _

_The elder Davis twin sighed, knowing that there was no way of him to wriggle out of this one without giving any information in exchange for Mai's silence. The brunette could be as stubborn as that twin little brother of his at times…_

"_Mai…" _

_The sound of her dream-guide finally speaking up in the dark, allowing her to pin-point his location caused the brunette to narrow her eyes at the teen in response. _

"_So glad that you've finally decided to show yourself, Gene…" Mai gritted out, annoyance apparent in her eyes. _

"_I figured hiding from you would not solve the problem in the long run, even if I could escaped today…the cycle would simply repeated itself again tomorrow or the day after to say. So…" Gene shrugged his response before sighing aloud and asked. _

"_Fired your question then, and by that I meant only one question." Gene emphasized. _

_Mai mulled over the questions she had for the elder twin silently in her mind, she decided to leave her fuzzy memories issue aside for the time-being and concentrated on Gene's whereabouts instead. Judging from the snippets of the conversation she had the chance to overhear from Madoka, Naru and Lin earlier on in the day… she could gathered from it that Lin and Naru's reason for coming down to Japan was because of Gene. Apparently, the duos were looking for Gene and had not been too successful in that area all these while. The question now was why…_

_Mai could simply ask her question, but there is a possibility of Gene beating about the bush about the response and not giving her a clear-cut and plain right answer. _

"_Has your visiting trip to Japan got anything to do with me…?" Mai eventually asked. _

_For a while, Eugene Davis was stumped. He had the dozen possible questions the brunette might be asking him swirling about in his mind as he tried to formulate a suitable response to each and every of it… but this was the last question on his mind to be deem possible for Mai to ask. Yet, it was this types of 'Yes', 'No' question that the brunette eventually decided to ask him…why?_

"_Come on, Gene. Answer me…it's not really a hard question to respond to, isn't it? A typical Yes, No response type of question…I am quite sure it doesn't require much thinking on your side for it." Mai prompted, raising an eyebrow up in response as she regarded the teen with slight anticipation. _

"_To be frank with you, this is actually the last question in mind that I thought you would ask…" Gene commented, before he nodded his head to Mai in response to her previous query. _

"_So it does have something to do with me eh…" Mai murmured to herself, and mentally she added the term 'two years back' to her inner question of 'when did Gene visit Japan'. _

_How she arrived at that theory? Very simple actually, Naru and Lin ventured over to Japan from UK in search of Gene about eighteen months ago, and Mai returned from US only six months before. If Gene's reason for coming to Japan did have something to do with her, then it probably would be at least two years ago. Gees…she hated doing theoretical analysis, why couldn't her memory simply returned to her now? If she had had her full and complete memory intact, she would not have to be here coming up with the entire 'IF' hypothesis already. _

"_Can I have another go at asking my question?" Mai__ asked, despite knowing that it would be futile. ._

"_Well, I did say that you only could ask me one question. Didn't I?" Gene actually sounded gleeful at Mai's words, causing the brunette to pout childishly and huffed at him. _

"_Fine then…I will go and figure things out on my own." Mai throws back at her dream-guide, before she changed the topic of conversation. _

"_Was there anything that you might want to show me in relations to this case?" Mai prompted, eyeing the teen expectantly. _

"_No…you already knew what the issue with this case was already. Don't you?" Gene responded. _

"_Indeed…but there's no harm for being on the safe side though since for all I know, I could have misjudged the situation at hand. I guess this would be the first and last time I see you on this case, isn't it?" Mai questioned, while Gene nodded with a small smile of his own before leaning in and pecked the brunette adoringly on the forehead. _

"_Mai, it's time for you to wake." Gene whispered; pulling back to his upright standing position as the brunette's image started to fade into nothing._

Mai took her mobile phone from the bedside table in the room the Miyamoto family had been kind enough to arrange for Madoka and her usage during which period of investigation process. The time reflected on screen was four-thirty in the wee hours of the morning.

Swinging her feet over the side of the bed, Mai slipped her feet into her sneaker as she padded her way out from the room as light as possible. She made her way to the base room next and immediately landed her eyes on Lin who is still watching the monitors while Naru dozed on the sofa couch peacefully.

"Lin-san…how is it?" Mai prompted, despite knowing for a fact that nothing much would be reflecting on screen since this was hardly a haunting case.

"Twice the cameras caught faint yellowish light in the nursery but that was about it, nothing else could be seen from the screen. I went out personally to check things out while Naru continue to watch the monitors, the toys in the baby's crib were indeed floating but I cannot detect any unknown entity in there." The Chinese man responded matter-of-factly.

"I see…" Mai nodded distractedly to the Chinese man's words, her main concern now was in the attic. Due to her suspicion of what was actually hogging on to the attic space, she did not installed any cameras up there for fear of the entity residing up there causing any form of damages to those precious equipment of Naru's.

"Mai…what are you doing up so early?" Naru's voice broke Mai's focus in coming back up with a suitable response to Lin's earlier statement.

"I had something bugging me on my mind, that's all." Mai responded with a shrug of her shoulders.

"About the case…?" Lin prompted.

"Not exactly… although I do have some thoughts pertaining to the case, but the main reason behind my insomnia was something else entirely." Mai commented.

"Something else…like what exactly?" Naru prompted.

"Like what happened to Gene perhaps…?" Mai replied, her tone calm and casual. Although, the reaction she received from her current two companions were anything but nonchalance.

The tension in the air was thick, so much so that one could actually cut it with a knife. The twenty-nine year old Chinese man exhaled harshly, as he flicked immediate concern eyes to his solemn ward. Naru was quite tensed in his posture; while his face betrayed nothing of his emotions…the nineteen year old teen's eyes and clenched fists speak volumes of his agitation towards Mai's words.

"Taniyama-san, have you by chance heard anything yesterday evening before you scald yourself outside the door?" Lin hurried to ask before Naru could snap.

"…I may or may not have heard anything then. Does it really matters?" Mai throws back at the Chinese man, focusing her attention solely on Naru.

"Where did you hear that name from?" Naru questioned in a flat-like manner.

"From his lips, I supposed." Mai shrugged, although she did not quite remember her first encounter with the elder Davis twin in real life then but Naru don't have to know that.

"I beg your pardon?" Lin was absolutely bewildered by Mai's statement. How could Mai have known Gene when the former was dead… and judging from Mai's initial reaction from seeing Naru there has been no recognition or anything. Even the newly dubbed nickname of 'Naru' had been a fluke on her part…at least, that was what he thought of Mai and Naru's first encounter.

There was silence for a minute, before Naru took a deep breath to re-compose his emotional state. He thought back to their most recent case about the karaoke suite, about how his dead twin had suddenly reaches out to him using their twins' telepathy channel of communication after one of Mai's disturbing dream of the case. Gene had sounded quite concern for the brunette's condition then…but how did his twin knew of Mai's dream visions? Unless…

"Was he your guide?" The question was out before he could stop himself, and it causes both his assistants to glance over at him spontaneously. Lin had his eyes widening from shock and Mai…surprise? Was there some degree of mild amusement in those brown eyes of hers?

"I guess congrats are in order? Gene was indeed my dream guide, but how did you figure that out?" Mai admitted easily, seeing as Gene has never quite forbidden her to mention anything about him being her dream-guide. She simply opted to keep things silent all these while…

"I heard Gene's voice in my mind on our last case…" Naru stated flatly, ignoring the sharp look directed towards him from Lin and concentrate mainly on the brunette's reaction to his words.

Mai's face darken several shades upon the end of his statement, and Naru thought he heard the brunette muttered something eerily similar to 'meddling busybody'…but he cannot be certain. His hearing may be good, but not that supreme to decipher those incoherent mutterings of the brunette when he was standing opposite to the girl.

"And you didn't think it important to tell us this because…?" Naru prompted next, sounding irked by Mai's decision to keep such important information away from him. Inwardly, he has no idea whom he should be angrier with… should his anger be directed towards his twin for choosing to go to Mai with those clues for the cases he was working on, or should he be mad at his assistant for keeping away his twin's presence in her dreams a secret from him.

"I didn't know it was Gene back then, I thought he was a more sentimental and friendly version of you initially… What's the point of telling then? Hilarity would sure present itself to us, and not to mention all that possible teasing remarks from Masako would definitely occur from time to time if I had told you guys about it." Mai reasoned.

Lin who had been listening in to the exchange between the duos for quite some time, suddenly interjected with a question of his. He was lost in the midst of the conversation now, and Mai's earlier statement of not knowing Gene's identity when she first started having those dreams of hers had flooded him with confusion. When Taniyama first admitted of her knowing Gene's identity from the former lips, he had assumed Gene informed her of Naru's identity from the start of those dreams of hers. Now though, it seems not to be the case… and knowing Gene, if he did not correct Taniyama's assumption of him being Naru during the first dream meeting. The elder boy would not do anything to change the fact, so how did Taniyama figured out Naru and Gene's identity?

"Pardon my interruption, but I have a few questions on my part that I'd hope that you will help to address." Lin said.

"Go ahead then, I'll try my best to answer them for you." Mai responded, her tone cooling significantly. Speaking with Naru had always managed to bring out the worse in her… so it was actually good to have an alternative party to converse with, at this current point of time.

"You mentioned previously that you had no idea of Gene's identity when you first gotten those dreams on our cases, what causes you to set Gene and Naru apart? While on the subject, do you actually have any inkling to Naru's true identity?"

"Flashback images from my last year in US led me to discover the truth. I didn't mention it before because I hadn't realized it until recently myself. Apparently, I had a chunk of my memories missing from my last year of being in the US. I do not know what had led me to lose these memories and what triggered off my sub-conscious to start recalling these images. What I do know from it all was that Gene was involved in every missing piece of my memories." Mai paused to let her words sink into the Chinese man before continuing on her speech.

"At first, I thought that was Naru… I didn't know of his identity then. Remember how I ask you whether you and Naru had been to the US before?" Mai glances up just in time to see realization dawning in on the Chinese man, and nodded grimly to the underlying question she had detected from the said man.

"Yes, when you responded that Naru has never been to the US before… I realized that the teen in my memories that resembled so much to my 'dream Naru' could not be the same person. That was when the name of 'Eugene Davis' sprang into my mind. Out of curiosity, I did a search on the internet about Eugene Davis and imagine my surprise when I look at the photographs featured in the articles…the photograph was one featuring the infamous Davis twins. The caption actually read Eugene and Oliver Davis…I went on to confront him in my dream later on, and he confirmed my suspicion then. So Yes, I know who Naru actually was… seeing as the one I'm seeing in my dream happened to be Gene, Naru must have been the other twin. Oliver Davis, otherwise he was known as 'Noll' and in Japan, by the nickname of 'Naru'." Mai concluded her speech, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed defensively in front of her chest area as she regarded her two companions blandly.

"…" The twenty-nine year old Koujo Lin pinched the bridge of his nose wearily, he had to admit the information he had just received from the brunette was rather overwhelming to him. He was inwardly thankful that Madoka was not here with them at this moment of time, if not…

Meanwhile, Naru was more concern of Mai's memory loss issue. Inwardly, he was wondering whether Mai's memory loss had had anything to do with his twin's demise. Come to think of it now… his twin had been quite secretive and adamant about coming down to Japan then. Could Mai actually be the reason behind Gene's insistency on the trip? What exactly was going on between them? What actually happened to Gene during that six months period prior to the incident?

"Mai…do you really want to know about what happen to Gene here in Japan?" Naru prompted, as he contemplated on letting the brunette in on the contents of his ultimate purpose for travelling down to Japan. Beside him, Lin was shooting warning looks at his direction which he was trying his hardest to ignore by concentrating his attention on the brunette.

'_Noll…don't you dare to tell her about it_.' Gene's voice sounded in the sub-conscious of Naru's mind again, just as the stoic teen was attempting to speak.

'_Why not…?_' Naru send back defiantly at his dead twin.

'_Just don't…_' Gene was leaving him no room for discussion.

'_You would have to give me a reason for it…_' Naru argued mentally with his twin.

'…_I don't want her to know, at least not to hear it from you._' That was the last thing Gene said before cutting off his connection to his younger twin.

In the end, Naru chooses not to speak of the issue again and instead send Mai out to get tea for his consumption much to the brunette's annoyance. Breakfast was taken in silence in the dining area of the Miyamoto family, and regardless of how Madoka probed Mai to let her in on what exactly happened earlier that morning in the base…the brunette remained tight-lipped about the conversation which took place between her, Naru and Lin then.

Later that afternoon, Mai was walking along the corridor-way heading for the attic deeply in thoughts when she chanced upon the moving portrait that Miyamoto Chihaya was talking about.

"Oh my… what a pleasure to have a descendant of the Yukimura clan in our humble abode…" The sudden sound of a foreign voice speaking up from behind causes Mai to take three steps back and stopped in front of a portrait hung on the wall along the corridor hallway.

"It is my pleasure to have a chance to meet you too, Lady Annabelle." Mai responded, after consulting the name imprinted on the bottom frame of the portrait.

The name on the frame read 'Annabelle Marie Francis, 1819 – 1903'; which Mai gathered was a magical portrait of the Miyamoto family by marriage.

"It's nice to have someone around here to speak without sending them off in a panicky manner." The portrait Annabelle commented dramatically by pulling out a hanky from nowhere and going all sentimental on Mai.

"Oh… you've tried speaking with the other residents down here?" Mai asked her interest piqued.

"Why, yes… there are a few family friends whom resided here for a brief period of time before. Obviously, they have not been told the slightest bit about their family heritage. When I attempted to greet them and make some small conversations, they had all but yelped in fright running down the hallways screaming bloody terror. The adults came on to investigate afterwards, only to claim me a ghost… attempting to get in exorcist to exorcise the entire place. Thankfully, old Stephen came back in time to take over the estate." The portrait was sniffing in disdain when she talked about the previous owner before Shinchirou's father.

"So after that few incidents, you never attempted to talk again?" Mai inquired with mild curiosity.

"Well no… old Stephen wasn't really a man of many words. We basically ignored one another presence and existence, but his magic core kept me moving though. I stilled for a period of one month following his passing, as his son was a squib but after his granddaughter moved in…my portrait started to move again. A very talented young witch that one was, but the mother was a little on the paranoid side." Annabelle commented with a rueful shake of head towards the end of the statement.

Mai maintain her silence about Chihaya's paranoid state, not wanting to be seen standing in the hallway arguing with some portrait as that would have be seen as silly. Slowly, Mai steered the conversation towards the knocking sound from the attic, and from Annabelle's recount – she confirmed her nagging suspicion that it was indeed a boggart residing up there and not something else dreadful like the gnome or ghoul.

Mai spend the next fifteen minutes or so speaking in the empty corridor-way with the portrait, and wriggling out information that relates to the Miyamoto family which their client was not aware of. Apparently, Miyamoto Shinchirou was a descendant from a fellow estranged member of the family. This house only goes to his father when the magical lineage of the family dies out with the death of the rightful owner about fifty years ago.

The other descendants of the rightful owner lineage are non-magical and they married normal beings that always make a big fuss out from the moving portrait thinking that this house was haunted. It appeared that they had attempted various exorcism deeds on the estate but when nothing changes, they had fled the place in terror-like manner getting rid of the house at an extremely low pricing. Eventually, Miyamoto Shinchirou's father fork out the money from his own pocket to purchase back the estate and nobody else from his estranged family bothered with the idea of letting go of the estate to the former. Although, Mai had an inkling if the ancestor of the Francis and Miyamoto family ages ago knew of this situation today… he or she might be rolling in their graves to speak now.

"Excuse me, Chihaya-san… do you perhaps know where could I locate your husband?" Mai entered the dining area where Chihaya was seen feeding her newly awaken twenty-month old daughter with some mash potato for breakfast.

"I gathered he would be in the Study room, is anything the matter?" Miyamoto Chihaya inquired, a look of concern creeping into her eyes.

"Oh no… nothing to worry about, I'm just going to get some history information on the house itself to help me out in the investigation process." Mai lied smoothly as she told the lady of the house.

"I'll get a maid to show you the way to our Study room…" With that, Chihaya beckoned for the kitchen helper – a mid-thirty woman to lead Mai away from the dining area.

"Sir, Taniyama-san of the SPR is here to speak with you." The maid knocked twice on the Study door before speaking up.

"Enter!" Miyamoto Shinchirou voice was heard from behind the door, while Mai nodded her thanks to the maid who went back to her duties at hand soon after Mai was granted permission to enter the Study room.

"Good morning, Miyamoto-san. I hope I am not intruding on anything important, but I figured I would need to speak with you prior to revealing the investigation outcome with your wife." Mai said, cutting straight to her point as she was never a fan of beating around the bush while discussing issues.

Miyamoto Shinchirou froze in mid-actions as he raised alarming wide eyes to meet Mai's brown ones, and then he swallowed nervously and said. "I beg your pardon…?"

"Miyamoto-san, I believed you heard me correctly the first time…" Mai responded in a deadpanned manner.

"You mean…you actually have an answer to explain all these occurrences down here?" The man sounded incredulous when he commented, arching an eyebrow up in elegance as he addressed Mai.

"Well…magical occurrences, was it not? Moreover, a fulfilling chat with a certain portrait of your great-grand aunt thrice removed solved the problem effortlessly." Mai mused aloud, directing a smirk his direction.

"You aren't sceptical about the idea of magic?" Miyamoto Shinchirou prompted, trying his hardest to appear unfazed by Mai's proclamation.

"What's there to be sceptical about?" Mai throws back easily, as she reached into her skirt's pocket and withdraw her own pointer wand out from within. A quick wave about the room had the scent of lavender lingering in the air.

"…I see." Miyamoto Shinchirou stated flatly, before sitting back down on his chair and regard Mai with cool eyes. "So what is it that you required to speak with me about?"

"I would like to know the reason why you hadn't had the insight to brief your wife about the history of this house, and the possibility of your daughter's magical abilities when it first manifested itself to be known in this place?" Mai responded.

"I didn't think it crucial then, but now…"

"In short, you didn't think that you would end up inheriting this estate prior to your father's death. When your daughter first displayed her magical talents, you were partially elated with joy and yet at the same time plagued with worry. Your wife has no idea of your family background, and because you were born a squib…you neglected to inform her about the possibility of your daughter inheriting abilities that you have not been bestowed upon. Pertaining to the knocking sounds from the attic, have you ever checked it out on your own yet?" Mai asked.

"I did… intend to but I guess it slipped my mind. And then my wife told me to wait for the experts…" Miyamoto Shinchirou muttered aloud in response to Mai's query.

"I see… in that case, do you mind showing me to the attic then?" Mai brought up the issue to go and investigate the attic then, successfully drawing the talk between them to a close.

The culprit behind the knocking sound turns out to be a boggart indeed, and Mai's solution to it was to trap it permanently in a sealed compartment with silencing charm in place. Since there was hardly any way to get rid of a boggart, and it has no form and reacted only to each and everyone's inner fear. Mai did not bother to look at the boggart direction, and merely cast the counter-spell to it before it could even took up the form of her inner most fear. Previously, it was taking up the form of the figure of Miyamoto Shinchirou's father who Mai suspected to be Shinchirou's inner fear.

"I think that's all I could do to it for now…" Mai murmured softly under her breath, before exiting from the attic with Miyamoto Shinchirou in tow. Together, they made their way to the base room and once inside, Mai told Madoka to get her university friend and that they are wrapping up the case.

Five minutes later, Miyamoto Chihaya appeared in front of the SPR looking quite confused. Madoka mirrored her expressions, while Mai merely lifted an eyebrow up in question.

"Mai-chan… shouldn't Lin be readying himself for some kind of exorcism acts? You mention that the mystery is solved, isn't it? But I just saw Haruko-chan floating in mid-air a while ago." Madoka spoke up, voicing her doubt across to the brunette in bewilderment.

"By floating… do you mean something like this?" Mai responded, as she focuses on bringing her magic forefront onto her bare hands and flicked towards the teacup in extreme concentration. Slowly, the tea-cup rattle from its unmoving position slightly before it rises up into the air with no one supporting it.

Madoka thought she saw Mai's hand emitting a faint pinkish light but she cannot be certain of it, but her friend Miyamoto Chihaya was openly gasping at Mai now.

"Oh my gods…that's how the toys stay afloat when Haruko was lying in the crib wide awake and with her hands outstretched. The yellowish light was visible on her hand back then… Goodness, how could this have had happen? Surely, my daughter is not psychic…or is she?" Miyamoto Chihaya asked sounding quite nervous.

"No…this isn't a sign of your daughter being psychic. Although some of the traits could be similar, but it wasn't due to any possession act either. Your daughter is quite normal to say, and quite talented in her magical ability." Mai commented, smiling as she nodded to the figure of Miyamoto Shinchirou to explain things fully to his wife.

"Magical ability…?" Both Chihaya and Madoka repeated a look of incredulity in their eyes.

"Yes, magical ability… contrary to popular beliefs witches and wizards do exist in our plane of existence. They were merely hidden from public knowledge. Chihaya-san, I suggested for you to listen to the explanation provided on your husband's part…as for you, Madoka…I will fill you in on the details later. For now, let's pack up and get ready to leave this place." Mai announced, turning around to assist the Chinese man in packing up the equipments in order to avoid having to explain to the curious researcher eyeing her with enthusiastic eyes.

Date started: 12/2/2013

Date completed: 13/2/2013

P.S: Okay, case closed. This is a fast one, isn't it? Two days to solve the mystery… well, seeing as it wasn't really a paranormal case. Naru would have chucked it into the bin if it wasn't for Madoka's insistence to take the case… I'm debating on which haunting case to do next; I have two ideas in mind…


	11. Chapter 11 - Dead Pianist Last Wish

A/N: Plot bunnies won't leave me alone, so this story emerges. This is my first attempt at Ghost Hunt Fic.

Title: The Ups and Down in the Life of Taniyama Mai

Pairing: NaruxMai

Summary: Mai is not as ordinary as she appeared to be – she has a secret and a latest case taken by the SPR forces her to lay it out in the open. Follow her as she and the SPR gang carried on in their ghost hunting adventures… Eventual NaruMai.

Disclaimer: **Ghost Hunt is not mine, copyright belonged to Fuyumi Ono.**

Author's Notes: Now it's time for case 4… I hope it is entertaining enough for you people. I tried my best not to be demoralized by the lack of reviews…

**Reply to Hikari Reizumi**: Thanks for the review I wish you luck for your mid-term. Lol, I hope my characters won't make you lost in the 'jungle' XD the last case should be quite alright, I think… when you say characters with similar names…do you mean their first name or family name? Although I have a habit of recycling my characters featured in the story, one should not mix them up easily unless they read all my fics on hand. Then there might be a confusion XD now on with the chapter…

Chapter 11 – Case 4: A dead pianist's last wish…Part 1

_Mai jolted awake upon the sound of a piano in the background, playing the infamous tune of Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata'. Blinking in bewilderment, the brunette glances around her surrounding only to find herself in an unknown corridor with a long stretch of doors ahead of her. There was no sign of living beings about the area, the only sign of human activity was that recurring tunes of Moonlight Sonata emerging from one of the rooms ahead. _

"_Okay…now what?" Mai mumbled to herself. Inwardly, debating whether or not to go in search for the pianist in question…but before she could come to the conclusion she was drawn back out from the vision and back into reality plane. _

Taniyama Mai sat up in bed with a sigh; the clock sitting on her bedside cabinet told her it was 12am.

'…Great, this is just bloody fantastic. No case yet and I'm dreaming of the most bizarre thing again.' Mai thought inwardly to herself.

"…Just what the hell is that supposed to mean…?" Mai frowned as she mumbled to herself.

With a rueful shake of her head, Mai re-settled herself back onto her bed with the intention to go back to bed and hopefully see no dreams this time around.

Hours later, when Mai awoke from her slumber land…she could still hear the sound of Moonlight Sonata ringing in her ears.

'Damn…that tune's not going to leave me alone now. Somehow, I feel as thought that dream is not quite over yet.' Mai thought with a frown, as she starts to get ready for the day ahead. Throughout school period, the brunette was oddly distracted in class.

The tunes of 'Moonlight Sonata' ringing about in the back of her mind was making it tough for her to concentrate on what the teacher was droning on about in History lesson. Luckily though, it wasn't one of her weaker subjects in scientific fields…if not, she might end up in trouble again with the teacher in charge.

When the school bell rang to signify the end of the classes for the day, for the first time ever…Mai was the first one out from the door. The brunette knew, the only way to stop the nagging thought in the back of her mind was to get down to SPR right away. Judging from her past experiences to say, whenever she got bizarre dreams it usually meant there is a possibility of it being related to one of their cases.

"Mai-chan…!" The sound of Madoka Mori addressing the brunette jolted Mai out from her reverie only to find herself being captured in a crush-like hug.

"Madoka-san…?" Mai blinked, still disoriented from her thoughts. For a while, she nearly forgotten the fact that Madoka Mori would be staying around in Japan for some time before returning to the UK.

"Come on, let's go shopping." The female researcher and mentor of Mai's young boss declared causing the brunette's eyes to widen in shock.

"EH…?!" Mai stared as her eyes widen in surprise, she did not rush all the way here from school to go shopping. She came for the sake of unravelling the mystery behind her bizarre dream from the night before…

That was when the twenty-nine year old Chinese man, Koujo Lin spoke up. He told the brunette to leave with Madoka so as to 'save' them from that woman, and not to worry about her job and pay issue. The Chinese man promised Mai that Naru would not be able to cut her pay for 'slacking' during work period, this time around.

"Finally…!" Naru exclaimed grumpily, when his clumsy assistant and his mentor was no longer within earshot.

The Chinese man shot his ward a sympathetic look, Madoka had come in one hour ago trying to persuade them into the idea of going shopping with her. Naru, having been one who was never quite enjoy the idea of being in a crowd had turned down her request flatly and suggested for her to ask someone else for that matter. That had been when Taniyama Mai stepped into the office, and instantly Lin had suggested for Madoka to head out with the brunette instead.

In response to his suggestion, Madoka had obliged happily while the poor girl seem quite bewildered by the sudden shopping trip request. Naru and Lin though, were quite relieved when that woman left the office with the brunette in tow. At least now they could really get some work done here in the office.

"Naru, I noticed that the mirror in the bathroom was broken into shards this morning. What happened between you and that mirror before I make use of the facility earlier on today?" The Chinese man asked; taking opportunity to ask before his ward could stalk back into his office to sulk in peace.

"…I spoke with Gene." Naru eventually caved and let it slip of the fact that he had spoken to his dead twin earlier on in the day using the mirror in their apartment flat as a medium source.

"I see…I take it that the conversation did not go well?" Lin commented.

"He refuses to speak of his whereabouts, except to stress upon the fact that neither of us was to speak of his death with Mai." Naru gritted out from frustration.

"Did he tell you the reason why?" Lin prompted, frowning as he too tried to come up with a possible explanation behind Gene's insistence to keep things a secret from the brunette.

"No, aside from the fact that Mai might not be able to handle the news well…and it appears that he was worried of what Mai would attempt to do after finding out the reason behind his death, it would seems." Naru responded with a frown.

"You don't think Gene's death has got anything to do with Taniyama-san, do you?" Lin questioned.

"I don't know, but I reckon that the reason behind Gene's coming to Japan does have something to do with her though. The timing matches, be it Gene's visit or Mai's return to Japan after her five years spend in the states." Naru eventually said with a sigh, before re-entering his office to brood in peace.

'_Damn you, Gene…_' Naru cursed inwardly at his dead twin for tempting his curiosity only to leave things hanging and unsaid.

Naru disliked the idea of being kept in the dark, because that gives him the feeling as though he was running about the place blind. During his earlier talk with Gene through the mirror, he had had a few of his questions answered only to bring up more queries and doubts in mind which his twin avoided to address. Gene had refuses to share information pertaining to his reason for visiting Japan, and the cause behind his death.

The former had only admitted to the issue of knowing Mai from the US and was on good terms with the brunette. And then Gene had make him promised that he would never speak of the former death with Mai, and that when the time comes…he would not leave the brunette alone and unsupervised. Why…? Naru had questioned, but Gene refused to supply him with an answer but was adamant on getting his word of promise.

With a sigh, Naru draws himself out from his memory lane and focused on the book of local maps in front of him. From his psychometric ability, he had gotten a vision of his twin's death by picking up a shirt of Gene's a few nights prior to his arrival in Japan with Lin. In fact, that vision was exactly the reason that spurs on their decision to venture over to Japan in the first place.

He had seen and felt his twin's paralysed fear when the car rammed into Gene's body twice before being thrown into a lake to drown to his death. The feeling was so horrible that he never managed to forget about it, for the first month of his arrival in Japan…he never managed a night's sleep without jerking awake from those recurring dreams of his twin's death. Having seen his twin's death, he had strike a bargain with his adoptive parents' Martin and Luella Davis, to venture down here to Japan with Lin in search for Gene's body with the intention to bring the former back to UK for eternal rest.

Naru had circled out all the possible venues of his twin's body current resting place, but the whole of Japan have about twenty over lakes. He could not possibly search each and every one of them… that would take too much time. Naru set up the Japan SPR office in order to prevent their UK acquaintances for kicking up a fuss of his lengthen period of stay in Japan. Either way, back to the topic of the lake in question… the thing now was that Naru had no idea which lake it was in his vision of Gene's death.

He could recognize the surrounding if he saw it with his own eyes, but it was hard to tell on a mere map images. However, the lakes were practically spread across the country and he had no intention to uncover it using trial and error method. That would take up too much of his free time, now if only Gene would slipped up with the information that would be for best but unfortunately, his twin seem unwilling to let him in on the fact. Regardless of the fact that he had given his dead twin his words that this information would be kept solely between them and probably Lin.

Naru was rudely awakened from his thoughts when his solemn and taciturn assistant knocked on his office door, informing him of a client's arrival to speak to him. Snapping the book of local maps closed, Naru grabbed his black notebook and stepped out from his office into the front area where Lin was just settling down on the couch with a laptop in hand, after bringing the clients some tea from the kitchenette.

"Good afternoon, I'm the boss of the SPR, Shibuya Kazuya. How do I address you?" Naru pushed aside his own thoughts, and had on his usual business smiling mask as he greeted the client. A smile in which Mai would no doubt comment about it being fake if she had been around to witness it on his face.

"Shinomiya Mihato…" The client responded as they shook one another's hands for a brief moment, before settling down on the sofa couch for the meeting to commence.

The man was dressed in a typical business suit and look to be about mid-thirties with sandy-brown hair and there was some apprehension and worry on his features. Naru observed, while Lin returned from the kitchenette area with a cup of warm green tea in hand and handed it to the prospective client.

"Thank you." The man accepted the tea with a nod of appreciation, but did not make a move to drink it just yet instead he opted to warm his hands using the cup of tea.

"Shinomiya-san, May I inquired what's the reason behind your visit today?" Naru questioned his notebook ready at hand to record key information to the case while Lin had his laptop ready at hand to type out the case information for future references.

"I understand from some of my colleagues that your company deals with supernatural phenomenon, correct?" Shinomiya Mihata glances up at Naru for confirmation, and upon receiving a nod in response…he continues on.

"I'm experiencing some unfathomable situation back at home, and I swear it was driving me to the brink of insanity." The man in his mid-thirties proclaimed.

"Unfathomable situation like what…?" Naru prompted, and that was exactly when Mai and Madoka returned to the office with their purchases from the mall.

"Shadows were moving about in the house; doors opening and closing by it-self; humming sound being heard from the room when there was no one visible in sight and the sight of a piano being played when there was nobody playing it." The man was saying with a frown on his face.

"Was there anything else aside from the above disturbance?" Naru asked.

"Yes, and no… the strange thing now was that the disturbance stopped occurring the moment my niece came over and stayed with us. Only thing that worries us was the oddity in my niece's behaviour these days." The man commented next.

"Oddity in behaviour…what do you mean?" Lin piped up from his typing task to regard the client with unwavering gaze.

"She cooped herself up in the music room where the piano was stationed at all day long, stopping only to eat or to use the facility. Dark rings could be seen decorating the sides of her eyes, and she was turning paler with each passing days. I'm worried about her health, but whenever I brought up the subject for her to rest for a while before continuing her practice on the piano…she would give me a weary smile and assured me that I have nothing to worry about.

Her temper was also getting stranger with each passing minute; sometimes she gets snappy for no apparent reasons. She refuses to let anyone touches the piano which I think was quite weird, and these days she only played the infamous tune of 'Moonlight Sonata' when everybody who knew her on personal scale was aware of the fact that she prefers Mozart pieces over Beethoven. It was as if she was a complete different person at times that it was freaking us out." With this said, the man combed a hand through his already messy hair in distress.

"Pardon my intrusion, but I have a question for you, sir." Mai spoke up from behind, ignoring Naru's inquiring gaze while she centred her attention on the man seated on the couch. The client took no offences to Mai's interruption and in fact signalled for her to voice her question across.

"By any chance is that piano you have in your residence your own property to begin with, or was it part of the house when you purchased the place?" Mai asked, drawing curious eyes from the rest of the office occupants.

"It came with the house itself… the previous owners says something about not needing it any longer." Shinomiya Mihato responded, if he was bewildered by Mai's question…he did not questioned Mai's reasoning behind her inquiry.

"…" Mai was silent as she mulled over the incident, thinking back on the dream she had had the night before. And then, she shifted pleading eyes towards her narcissistic boss silently willing him to accept the case.

Naru knew Mai wanted him to accept the case, but he was not going to do so without getting a valid reason out from her first. And so, he only instructed for the potential client to leave his contact details with Mai while he think it over and would contact him once he made up his mind about whether or not to accept the case. The moment, the client departed from the office and was deem to be completely out from earshot… Naru started throwing questions towards the brunette.

"You seem quite eager for me to accept the case, why?"

"I don't know but if my recurring dreams of the tune 'Moonlight Sonata' were of any hint…I think we ought to accept it. Besides, I have enough reasons to believe that the niece of Shinomiya-san was being possessed by the spirit. He did mention about the phenomenon stopping once his niece was there to stay with him, no?" Mai pointed out blatantly.

"…" Naru was silent as he mulled over the brunette's words, he had to admit Mai's reasoning was valid enough. Grudgingly, he nodded his agreement to accept the case and instructed for Mai to notify the client about their acceptance of the case and to make relevant arrangements for the investigation to take place.

With that, Mai proceeded to call up the client making the necessary arrangement for their investigation work. Next, she dialled up the numbers of their usual SPR team members and informed them of their new case that would be taking place this coming weekend.

Date started: 14/2/2013

Date completed: 18/2/2013

P.S: Sorry for the shorter chapter, but my mind refuses to cooperate on the start of this case… Pardon me eh. I'll try to make next chapter longer if I can.


	12. Chapter 12 - Dead Pianist Last Wish

A/N: Plot bunnies won't leave me alone, so this story emerges. This is my first attempt at Ghost Hunt Fic.

Title: The Ups and Down in the Life of Taniyama Mai

Pairing: NaruxMai

Summary: Mai is not as ordinary as she appeared to be – she has a secret and a latest case taken by the SPR forces her to lay it out in the open. Follow her as she and the SPR gang carried on in their ghost hunting adventures… Eventual NaruMai.

Disclaimer: **Ghost Hunt is not mine, copyright belonged to Fuyumi Ono.**

Author's Notes: I'll try to weave in bits and pieces of Mai and Gene's relationship into the story starting this case onward, but it's of no guarantee since this particular case weren't exactly being cooperative with me.

Chapter 12 – Case 4: A dead pianist's last wish… Part 2

Day 1 – Friday Evening

The Shinomiya estate was situated in the prefecture of Nagasaki, which required the group to travel out of town. In short, it basically also meant for Mai to be absent from school again. The sheer thought of having to approach her homeroom teacher for permission to take leave of absence from classes causes Mai to sigh aloud with dread.

Unlike the school principal, Mai finds it extremely hard to make her homeroom teacher sees everything from her point of view. She cannot let it slip to the teacher that she was working to support her own living expenses, because that would mean the teacher would call up her legal guardians which would only serves to complicate things further.

There are times she wishes she could opted to put either Ayako or even Bou-san as her legal guardians so as to prevent troubles her way, but unfortunately it doesn't work this way because she still have living kin on her mother's side of the family despite how strained their relationship with one another was.

'Gees…no point procrastinating further…' Mai told herself resolutely as she made her way to the staff room in search for her homeroom teacher with the leave application form and letter in hand.

Meanwhile, in the SPR office the investigation team members have all been assembled and were waiting for the brunette's arrival. There was no doubt that the brunette would be running in late, again. The time for the SPR team to assemble in the office was specifically stated at noon hours, and it was no wonder for the brunette to be seen rushing into the office at half-past noon.

"Sorry, I'm late…" Mai did not bother to give any reasons for her lateness, because it was the same old reason which she had been giving to Naru over the past six months since her promotion to the graduating class in school.

Her homeroom teacher was not making things any easier for Mai to apply leave from school for cases, there has already been twice the occasions whereby Mai had to work through Skype Video Call method whereby she would supply the dreams details from her end as she could not join them on an outbound trip. Seeing as her wizardry powers had been kept a secret from them at that point of time, she couldn't simply pop in and out of the investigation site whenever she pleased then.

"I assumed by waltzing in here this late of time meant that you have successfully gain permission for your absence from school?" Koujo Lin started before Naru could pinch in his opinions on the brunette's lateness for work.

"Yes, after I promised to submit all my schoolwork on time and that I would do some self-study project while working on the case." Mai responded meekly, trying to ignore the glare directed towards her from Naru's direction.

"I hope you know…that does not give you a valid reason to skive off from work." Naru warned before calling for every one's attention to start getting a move on the road.

Mai wisely refrained from throwing back a sharp retort of her own; she refuses to snipe at the narcissistic teen knowing for certain that she was no match for the former in a verbal argument. The ride to Nagasaki was uneventful to say the least; Mai was again travelling in the SPR van with the two stoic males for companionship. The journey was boring with Lin concentrating on driving, Naru reading his book on parapsychology.

Mai, as usual, took the time to nap a little and ended up in that bizarre dream of hers' comprising of hallways, pianos and 'Moonlight Sonata' for the third time around in the same week.

'…' _Mai sighed aloud as she noted the well-lit corridor way and the familiar tune of Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata' playing in the background. This was her third time dreaming of this scene, and up till the current point of time…she had yet to see the __point behind this whole dream. _

_Seeing as nothing could be accomplished if she were to continue standing in her position, and with Gene nowhere in sight…Mai figured it would be best to follow the sound of the music. Thus, she decided to follow her instincts hoping to locate the source of the music and ended up finding herself in front of a room with double door. _

_The door was slightly ajar, hence resulted the music to travel down the hallway when it should have been soundproof. Mai could hear her own heart thumping against her ribcage as she pushes the door open such that she could see for herself what was going on behind the door. _

_As the door creak open, it revealed a young lady about the age of early twenties seated on the piano stool. The sound of the piano tune was disrupted with Mai's entry into the room, as it had caught the attention of the lady, presuming the one whom was playing on the piano earlier on in time. _

"_Yes, what do you want now?" The lady had asked in an annoyed tone of voice. _

"_Melissa, you know what the doctors are saying… your health is deteriorating. You should be resting and not playing the piano." Mai could hear herself saying and that was when the notion of her being in another first person dream hits her. _

"_I know…but I just can't help it, the competition is nearing. I don't know when this useless body of mine would start collapsing but I just want to practice more while I still could." The lady, Mai believed was named Melissa said with a sad smile playing on her lips before she broke down into a coughing fit. _

_After a few minutes, the coughing fit started to subside but Mai could easily see that the lady was ashen pale by now and was panting heavily as though she had just run a mile of route when all the lady did was to sit and play the piano. Inwardly, Mai wondered just what kind of sickness does the young lady has to result in such a drastic reaction to a coughing fit. However, there was no way of her to know as having a dream in a first person point of view does not grants her the right to access the person's memory for hints and clues to the mystery. That was something she had to do to figure out by herself._

_A sudden wave of dizziness hits Mai, warning her of the fact that her body in reality plane was starting to awake. Mai allowed the darkness to claim her without putting up too much of a resistance, when she came to…she noticed that they were nearing their client's estate ground._

Rubbing the sleep away from the eyes, Mai sat up straight in her seat. A quick dart towards Naru's direction found the teen still reading his book, and Mai had to really hand it in to her boss for his ability to not succumb to giddiness with the way the van was turning here and there as they manoeuvre their way into the front porch of the client's house. She knew she would be if she had been doing the same thing as Naru was, at this moment in time.

Shaking her head to rid her mind of unwanted thoughts, Mai was the first one climbing out from the van once it pull to a stop in front of the estate. Without waiting for Naru to prompt her, Mai went directly to the back of the van and started to unload the equipments from it. If Naru was surprised by Mai's initiative act, he did not showed it and instead simply make a move to greet their client – Shinomiya Mihato.

Shortly after the van arrived at the client's residence, another car turned into the driveway and came to a stop behind the van's location. It was the car of Takigawa Houshou, the monk of Mt. Koya. A short while later, Matsuzaki Ayako, John Brown, Hara Masako and the monk all filed out of the car and joined Naru either up front with the client or approached the van to help Mai and Lin with the unloading of equipments.

From the corner of the eyes, Mai noticed how Hara Masako was trying to close in on Naru only to have the narcissistic teen moving out of her way whenever possible and found herself rolling her eyes at the medium's acts. How blind could Masako be…? Even she could see that Naru was not at all interested in the former, and yet the medium never seemed to get the idea and kept on pestering him.

"Mai, don't mind her… you know how she's like. I am more than willing to bet the so-called date Naru promised her was just to get her off his back. It doesn't take a genius to figure out how annoyed our young boss was with her, I bet the date was only secured by her using blackmailing deed."

The sudden sound of Ayako speaking up jolted the brunette out from her thoughts as she turned her eyes towards the priestess, and smiled as she replied. "I know… I'm not bothered by her act."

"Are you sure…? You are not just saying this to get me off your back, right?" Ayako was sceptical, since when was Mai not bothered by Masako's act when it comes down to one particular narcissistic teen of their group? However, a detailed assessment informed the red-haired priestess that the brunette was quite serious in her latest proclamation and the former nearly applauded Mai for the girl's maturity at handling the situation, this time around.

There are mainly two reasons behind Mai's lack of irritation towards Masako's acts, one of which being Gene's assurance that Naru was not at all fond of Hara Masako and the elder twin had already clued Mai in on the visible signs to look out for when the medium was pestering the younger Davis twin.

Judging from the way Naru was trying to inch away from the medium discreetly and the tensed up body stance whenever the girl tried to close in on him, Mai knew enough to know that Naru was not at all comfortable with the way Masako was acting around him. Not to forget the way Naru was avoiding to look at Masako by turning his eyes elsewhere was one of the obvious hints that he cannot stand the medium brat at all.

The second reason would be Mai's internal debate of her own affections towards Naru; previously she had thought Gene to be a nicer and friendlier version of Naru and from then on encourages her own feelings for her young boss to grow. Now, she was confused by these feelings of affections…because she had no idea which Davis twin was she actually pining away for. It certainly did not help with her fuzzy-like memories of Gene, and hence she decided to push aside her affections for Naru until she figured out what her true relationship with Gene was like before acting on them.

The house of the client was two storeys high; it came equipped with a living room; study room; music room; dining room; a common bathroom and a kitchen on the first storey while the second floor was where the bedrooms were situated. The house also came equipped with a front and back yard, a garage and also a basement area for storage of items. The base allocated for SPR usage was situated in the basement, while two bedrooms on the second floor was also allocated for their usage.

"I hope the basement will suffice for your base, as I need my study room for work and there are no other rooms big enough to operate as a base for the investigation work…" Shinomiya Mihato started sounding a little uneasy, while Mai directed a small smile his way hoping to soothe the man's apprehension.

Naru and Lin took a look at the basement area, before turning to nod their approval at the client resulting in their client's obvious sigh of relief.

"I shall leave you people to see to the setting up of the base, feel free to look for me if you required any further assistance." The man said, before bowing and taking his leave from the room.

"Okay, now what…?" Mai asked, gesturing to the cameras equipment surrounding them. There has not been too much of a disturbance taking place around here, and thus far the only source of disturbance had been in the music room. However, Mai doesn't think it wise to station one of the cameras in there because if it was indeed a case of a possession down here… there is a likelihood of the cameras being destroyed by the possessed victim.

"We will leave the camera for later, for now…Hara-san. I would like to have you do a walk-through of the house, try and see if you can get anything from here. Father John, kindly escorted Hara-san about the place. Mai, Tea and get the temperatures of the place while at it." Naru instructed, as he turned towards the rest of the equipment assisting Lin to hook them up and set up the base room.

The monk was entrusted with the task of locating the client, getting him to gather the servants around for the impending interview session while the red-haired priestess was asked to go scouting in the neighbourhood trying to gain information from the nearby residence of the house itself to see if there have been any other similar incidents happening from before.

Mai decided to leave the task of getting tea for Naru last, and get down to the task of taking temperatures of the place first. With the temperature reading board and thermometer in hand, the brunette entered rooms after rooms to note down the temperature starting from the second floor and then gradually moving to the first floor of the estate. She was stepping out from the kitchen when she heard it, the distinctive tune of the famous piece of Beethoven 'Moonlight Sonata' again.

Slowly, she made her way towards the slightly ajar music room door. Despite the fact that the door and flooring looks different, somehow it still managed to give her a sense of déjà vu as she inches closer to the room's door. There was something about the way the music piece being played that seemed familiar to her…

"Who's there…?!" The voice from within the room sounded, as the music ended abruptly.

"…Sorry for intruding, I didn't mean to… but that piece you were playing. It sounds a little familiar to me but I just can't seem to remember its' name…" Mai smoothed her expression over to one of awe-struck, and pretended to be mesmerized by the tune as she responded to the voice owner's words.

The owner of the voice relaxed visibly upon Mai's response, and said. "That's the sound of Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven. It's quite a famous piece, and I believed you had the chance and honour of hearing it somewhere before hence your déjà vu feel upon the sound of it."

"Ah…no wonder, are you by chance the niece of Shinomiya-san?" Mai pretended to ask as though she had no idea of it before.

"Yes, and if you don't mind me asking… who are you?" The niece of the client questioned.

"Oh…I'm part of the filming crew for a documentary project. Well, you know how well-known your uncle is in the world of archaeology – right? Either way, my brother was doing a project for his university credit and he had the intention to film and does a bibliography record for your uncle. Somehow, he managed to talk your uncle into accepting his request and for this week we would be here to conduct the interview, does the filming on your uncle daily lives." Mai responded, churning out a lie easily enough and inwardly providing them with an excuse to film in the estate ground too.

"I see… it won't be too noisy I hoped? I'm practicing for my competition piece as of current, and would like to be leave alone during this period of your filming process." The girl had responded to Mai's words, taking her excuse easily enough.

"Well…we would have to pop by and film in here for a while. I promised not to disturb you in any way possible, or perhaps we could do it while you are not practicing in here? Say during your resting hours perhaps…?" Mai prompted, trying to coax the latter into allowing them to film the music room at some point of time.

"I thought you guys are doing a film of my uncle, why do you even need to film this room?" The girl was asking, a little suspicious now of Mai's excuse.

"Well, there are quite a number of artefacts here in this room that was discovered by your uncle's archaeologist trip to some exotic countries, right? We are hoping to get them on the film too…" Mai continued to lie through her teeth, inwardly congratulating herself on her story-churning ability that seems to have been improving with time.

"If you put it in this way…I supposed it won't hurt to spare an hour for you guys to film the room. However, just be careful not to touch the piano in anyway possible." The girl warned before shooing Mai out of the room.

"Roger that…just send someone over to inform me when it's okay for us to film the music room." Mai said, before whizzing out of the music room and back into the hallway. With that done, Mai hurried over to the kitchen to get Naru's tea ready before bursting back into the base room with her cover story given to the niece of their client.

"Okay, so in short… you feed her stories about us being a filming production crew for some university documentary project about the intention to do some bibliography thing on the client? I assume, Naru-bou over there is supposed to be your cousin or sort?" The monk stared at Mai with incredulity as he commented aloud.

"Well, yes… generally speaking, that's the gist of it." Mai responded without a bat of an eyelid.

"Right, so what are the rest of us again?" The monk prompted.

"Lin could be the professional brought in by Naru to oversee the whole production issue. Bou-san will be the senior in the media and video faculty whom Naru approached for help in producing the film, and Ayako would be your girlfriend who decided to tag along on the run. John and Masako would be Naru's extra help in this project, let's take it as they are my classmates or something." Mai throws out to the lot, assigning them roles for their cover story.

"Speaking of which, Mai…how did you know of the client's job title anyway?" The monk suddenly brought up the issue, since that was not record on the client's profile when they accepted the case.

"… I don't know actually, it just sprang to my mind earlier on when I was trying to come up with a suitable cover story for our being here to that niece of the client." Mai responded, honestly.

"It just sprang to your mind…? Was there a possibility of you knowing the client on a personal scale?" Naru eyed Mai sceptically as he questioned, since Mai did have a whole missing chunk of memories from her brain. That could jolly well be the reason behind how Mai knew of their client's job title before they got it out from the client.

"…" Mai frowned, trying to recall anything of the sort only to come up with a blank like scenario. Eventually, she said. "No…I'm quite certain I do not know him on a personal scale, because if I do…he would have bound to recognize me by now which he haven't yet…thus far. Although, I would not disregard the possibility of me having heard about him before at a certain point of my life left behind in the US."

"Right, so let's get down to work then… bring out the cameras and set up two of it in the study where our client frequent. Just so to support Mai's cover story of us doing a bibliography on Shinomiya-san." Naru commented, and then he took the camcorder out and told Lin to film it whenever possible while they were walking about the place. Especially, that would be the camera to use while filming the inside of the music room and probably the piano.

"Speaking of which, have you gotten any dreams thus far…?" Naru prompted, while Mai blanched. She had totally forgotten about the dream she had had on her way over, and thus immediately nodded and start launching into her earlier dream of the two ladies' conversation involving the piece of 'Moonlight Sonata' and the piano…

"Was that piano you seen in the dream the same one as the one situated in the music room here?" Naru asked.

"No idea, I didn't manage to get in close enough to look at the piano just now. Probably, we would have to film it into the tape when we entered the music room later on in time then. Hopefully, I would have another dream later on so to get more clues to this particular case." Mai responded with a sigh.

Date started: 21/2/2013

Date completed: 22/2/2013

P.S: I'm starting to regret my decision to pick something like that to write about, but well… I already started it, so I'm gonna finish it no matter what…


	13. Chapter 13 - Dead Pianist Last Wish

A/N: Plot bunnies won't leave me alone, so this story emerges. This is my first attempt at Ghost Hunt Fic.

Title: The Ups and Down in the Life of Taniyama Mai

Pairing: NaruxMai

Summary: Mai is not as ordinary as she appeared to be – she has a secret and a latest case taken by the SPR forces her to lay it out in the open. Follow her as she and the SPR gang carried on in their ghost hunting adventures… Eventual NaruMai.

Disclaimer: **Ghost Hunt is not mine, copyright belonged to Fuyumi Ono.**

Author's Notes: This chapter is so hard to manage; I nearly yanked my hair out writing this…

**Reply to Hikari Reizumi**: Lol… a very agitated response, I know what you mean… XD I don't mean that literally, but you cannot blame Mai for thinking the wrong way. Because her memories are still fuzzy XD and for all you know, she could be mistaken since Gene refused to let her in on the fact XD Besides, this is a Naru and Mai fic :D

On a side note, a very big thank you to those whom are following this story :D – your silent support is also one of my motivation to keep this fic going.

Chapter 13 – Case 4: A dead pianist's last wish…Part 3

Day 2

Madoka Mori was in the public library digging through past records in the archives department, pertaining to the house of the SPR latest client. According to Naru, she was supposed to be looking for any form of information pertaining to the house's history. So far, she had yet to get her hands on any information relating to the case and she wondered briefly just how much further back into the history she would be required to scan through before getting any useful information from the archives.

Meanwhile, Taniyama Mai yawned as she tried her best to concentrate on her physics homework. She was currently in charge of watching the base while the rest of the SPR team members were busy keeping up facades according to the story she had weaved for them all. It was now day two of their investigation work; the previous day had gone by uneventfully. As of current, Masako had yet to spot any spiritual activity in the house.

The niece of Shinomiya Mihato whom Mai had a nagging suspicion of being possessed by the entity haunting the place was behaving quite normal for the whole of yesterday. It was as though the entity possessing the girl knew there were outsiders around and was trying to lay low hoping not to catch anyone's attention.

Feeling her eyelids drooping for the umpteen times since she started working on her physics homework, Taniyama Mai let out a huff of breath as she stood and made her way across the hall to the washroom in order to freshen herself up.

She was in the washroom when she found her surroundings distorting and then Mai found herself standing in an unfamiliar hallway again.

'…_There we go again.' Mai thought with an exasperated roll of her eyes.__ Sometimes, these dreams of hers' picked the worst timing ever to suck her in…she had no doubt that she would be criticized by Naru again for falling asleep in the common toilet, once she woke in reality plane. _

_A quick assessment of her surrounding told Mai enough that she was still in the corridor-way where she always was in this series of dreams for the case. The only difference being that there was no sound of piano tune playing in the back this time around, and hence Mai figured that whatever she needed to see this time around had nothing to do with that piano or that tune of 'Moonlight Sonata'. _

'_Well…that's good though, I swear if I were to hear that tune again…I'll banned Beethoven's collection of music pieces to be given to me as a birthday or Christmas gifts in future.' Mai thought. Contrary to what people believes Mai does have an interest in classical music and often received music CDs from her friends residing in US as her annual birthday gifts. _

_In fact, one of her friend had made it a habit to send Mai CDs full of famous classical and contemporary pieces played on the different musical instruments that was self-recorded during their annual class gathering sessions accompanied by a lengthy letter of well-wishes for Mai's birthday on a yearly basis. _

___Shaking her head ruefully to rid her mind off such unwanted stray thoughts, Mai decided to follow her instincts and go ahead with the exploring of the place. Eventually, Mai ended up finding herself in a sitting room environment listening in on a conversation between a couple of mid-forties and a professional, most likely a doctor. Mai surmised, since the professional was dressed in the typical doctor's garb, and whatever was the topic of conversation between the trios seemed rather serious in Mai's opinion. _

"_How could this have happened to my dear girl__…?" The woman was weeping silently as she questioned to no one in particular, the man seated by the woman's side held her silently as she wept pitifully. _

"_Doctor, how long do you reckon Melissa still has with her?" The man asked, still comforting his distressed wife with gentle pats on the hand. _

"_Give or take another month's time…the cancerous cells had spread, and it has now invaded her lungs I feared." The doctor was saying. _

"_Oh no…my poor Melissa…" The woman gasped before covering her face with both her hands in distress. For a while, nobody said anything until the doctor departed from sight and that was when the woman had totally lose it and started ranting and raving in agitation. _

_Mai could easily hear the woman cursing the gods up in heaven for doing this to her daughter, and wailing as she complaint on how cruel the heaven was to her talented and beautiful daughter who envisioned to be the best pianist in the world only to suffer now from an incurable disease eating away at her life. _

_A swirl surrounded Mai's vision, and the next thing she found herself staring at was the magnificent grand piano. Glancing about her surrounding, she noticed that it was empty of life…cautiously; Mai approached the piano with the intention to take a good look at it. The piano was one manufactured by the well-known company 'Steinway & Sons', it was a magnificent grand piano and one of the older versions available in the world. _

_Mai was about to take another step forward towards the piano when she noticed a white mist emitting forth from the said instrument and then forming a ghostly like figure. Slowly, it began to take shape and transform into the figure of Melissa – the same female character Mai had seen in one of her earlier dream. _

"_Hello there, young lady…" The ghost-like figure greeted causing Mai to swallow nervously. This was the first time ever Mai had experienced something of this nature, and quite honestly it sort of freaked her out a little bit. _

"_Erm…sorry but are you by chance r__eferring to me?" Mai asked back in return, slightly unnerved by the situation at hand. _

"_Sorry for startling you, but __apparently this is the only way I could speak with you without needing you to touch the piano.__" The ghost-like figure was telling Mai. _

"_I beg your pardon?" Mai questioned, feeling bewildered by the ghost-like figure's words. _

"_I'm haunting the piano, that much I gathered you should known by now?" The ghostly apparition commented. _

"_I get that part alright, but I don't get why you said this is the only way to communicate with me." Mai responded. _

"_Well…seeing as you need to touch the piano, in order for me to appear before you…and only when I appear to you could I manage to speak with you, isn't it? However, you are not allowed to touch the piano…I would have to find some other alternative method to speak with you.__"__ The ghost-like figure explained. _

"_Okay__…but how did you know about this method?" Mai frowned, as she voiced her doubts across. _

"_My host vessel, Kaori informed me__…" _

"_Kaori…you meant the niece of Shinomiya Mihato?__ So you are indeed possessing her? Why are you doing this? No wait, you spoke to her?!__" Mai __gushes out in a rush, a frown marred her features as she thought the name Shinomiya Kaori rang a bell in her fuzzy like memories but unfortunately, she simply could not remember where exactly did she heard the name from. _

_Cursing inwardly, Mai decided to push the issue to the back of her mind and concentrate on her current situation at hand first. _

"_Yes…well,__ I am indeed possessing her but rest assured that she would not be harmed in any sense with my possession of her body. Either way let's get back to the matter on hand, shall we? I'm certain that basing from the scenes which I've shown you earlier on in time…you would know enough to see that I was dying. And while part of me was resigned to fate to the idea of dying…there's another part of me that's feeling unhappy by the situation at that point of time._

_I was kind of an ambitious person, and the illness finds me at the most inappropriate timing ever. I was, at that point of time, preparing for a competition that I considered a 'once in a lifetime' opportunity for me to gain my one-way ticket into being a professional pianist, to be able to debut in the city of Vienna, well known for its' music achievements.__" The ghost-like figure said, taking a pause in between to see if Mai was still with her on the subject. _

"_Uh-huh…" Mai nodded in response, and although she was curious just what incurable disease did the female suffered and died from…she had refrained herself from asking. If the dreams were showing her exactly what the ghost had intended for her to see, then it would be wise not to press into the topic of the illness that kills the girl now standing in front of her. _

"_Right…so after I received news of my illness, I was beyond devastation. Music was practically my life, and from young my ultimate aim was to become a well-known pianist to the world. I worked so hard and strived all these while working towards that specific goal in life, only to have the gods up there in heaven playing such a cruel joke on me. I didn't want to admit the truth back then, and I attempted to run away from the reality by purposely ignoring the doctor's advice and instead continue on with my daily routine practices. I practice all day and night, not stopping at all and in the midst forgoing the idea of rest and food. I know it wasn't healthy but I didn't want to budge. I drive myself on until the very last moment that my body simply could not withstand it any further, and then I collapsed.__" The ghost of Melissa was saying, and then she looked over to Mai with a sadden expression on her features. _

"_What happened next?"__ Mai prompted. _

"_Even after I collapsed, the idea of practicing for the competition piece still existed in me. I wanted very much to continue playing the piano, but at that point of time it was impossible for me to do so any longer. I was on constant support of the oxygen tank to keep me going, and while I did not want to let my dream of becoming a pianist go…my mother didn't want to let me go either. She clings onto me desperately, but still it was to no avail. By the end of the week, I was gone." _

"_But you didn't move on to the afterlife…?" Mai stated her tone flat and void of emotions. _

"_Well, yes… in a way, I cannot move on due to unfinished business in this living realm." _

"_Okay... but you do want to move on, right?" Mai asked. _

"_Eventually, I would have to move on__…I have been lingering behind for far too long and any longer, my spirit would be beyond salvation." The ghost of Melissa admitted grudgingly. _

"_I see…so you would leave on your own, once the competition was over?" Mai pressed on._

"_Indeed." _

"_I see…so did you take over her body by force, or did she hand the control over to you willingly?" Mai queried._

"_She let me used her body wil__lingly, although I did tried the other option first but she wasn't someone I could control easily." _

"_I see…so when would be the competition?" Mai questioned._

"_In one week's time…" The ghost of Melissa responded, before the images in front of Mai's sight started to go fuzzy on her and before long she found herself waking in reality plane. _

Letting out a groan, Mai held a hand up to the side of her head attracting the attention of those in the same room as her. A quick glance about the place informed Mai readily that she was now no longer in the washroom, but in the basement where the base for the investigation was situated.

"Mai-chan, pray tell how on earth did you ended up falling asleep in the washroom?" The sound of Matsuzaki Ayako greeted the brunette's conscious state of mind as she woke.

"I apologized for that, but it was not my choice to do so." Mai muttered aloud in response, catching the attention of Lin who was currently in the midst of scanning the content of the email send to him by their resident researcher, Mori Madoka.

"Taniyama-san, did you have a dream earlier?" Koujo Lin, the twenty nine year old Chinese assistant of Naru asked.

"I sure did…you may want to get your laptop ready at hand." Mai said, and then promptly start launching into the tale of her earlier dream scene.

"Surely you are not thinking of taking the ghost's words for it, are you?" Ayako said in a tone of skepticism, narrowing her eyes into slits as suspicion crept into the depths of her eyes now.

"I don't know…okay, I'm no expert in this." Mai responded, and then she shifted her eyes over to the medium of the group and asked.

"So…Masako, what's your opinion on this?"

Hara Masako, the resident medium of the SPR team frowned before answering. "I'll say we try to conduct a session of séance before making any decision. For all we know, Mai could have been imagining things."

Mai threw a look of annoyance towards the bratty medium's direction but refraining from arguing with the kimono-clad girl. The last thing she wanted was to be involved in yet another spat with Masako and risked having her narcissistic boss looking upon her as a mere child.

"You can try your luck, although I highly doubted that you can find your way in there and get a chance to conduct that séance of yours. Shinomiya Kaori was quite adamant about not letting us touch the piano at all." Mai commented, tightly.

With that said, the brunette made a move to leave the base for the room which she was sharing with the rest of the SPR girls. Her laptop was left in the room earlier, and now she was in need of it to check some things out. She knew Lin had use for his own laptop, and she did not want to hinder the man's work.

Later that night, Mai was surfing her old school's website while pondering on the reason why she had a flashback when the ghost in her dream informed her of the client's niece name…when she noticed it. The name Shinomiya Kaori was being listed in the list of students' with high grades achievement on the school's past honorary student's ranking chart.

"Holy shit… Shinomiya Kaori's from the psychic class stream!" Mai muttered aloud, now the mystery behind why she had known of the client's occupation was solved. That man was at the graduation ceremony of his niece, and a few of her classmates had been discussing the man's choice of occupation then. That was when Mai had first heard of the client's name, and because she wasn't in the same stream of classes as the niece of Shinomiya Mihato…Mai had not been able to recognize the girl previously when they had first met in the music room.

Mai proceeded on to check her laptop battery lifespan, figuring that it would still last her for another hour or so…the brunette promptly brought the laptop down to the basement where the base was, all the while careful not to drop the device onto the floor. She had after all just gotten her newly repaired laptop back and had no qualms about sending it back for repair work. Never mind repairing, if she dropped her laptop it basically meant spending more money on a completely new unit because nothing could be salvage if the device broke into several parts upon the impact of being dropped from a height.

Unknowingly to the brunette, someone was watching her every moves from a hidden corner of the house. That someone was none other than Shinomiya Kaori, the niece of their client and the willing vessel host for the ghost of Melissa.

Date started: 1/3/2013

Date completed: 3/3/2013

P.S: Sorry for the short chapter again, but it nearly killed me writing this. Hopefully, part 4 of this case could come out more easily… *Headache* sorry for the lack of Gene in Mai's dream, and once again, I must emphasize there is no need to worry about Mai being in love with Gene. This is a Naru and Mai fic, I must remind. The reason why Mai was unsure of her feelings towards Naru was mainly because of her fuzzy memories pertaining to Gene's presence in her life, and with the way Gene was avoiding speaking of it like a plague…it was confusing Mai to no end.


	14. Chapter 14 - Dead Pianist Last Wish

A/N: Plot bunnies won't leave me alone, so this story emerges. This is my first attempt at Ghost Hunt Fic.

Title: The Ups and Down in the Life of Taniyama Mai

Pairing: NaruxMai

Summary: Mai is not as ordinary as she appeared to be – she has a secret and a latest case taken by the SPR forces her to lay it out in the open. Follow her as she and the SPR gang carried on in their ghost hunting adventures… Eventual NaruMai.

Disclaimer: **Ghost Hunt is not mine, copyright belonged to Fuyumi Ono.**

Author's Notes: This case is the hardest to manage, in a way its worst than the Karaoke Suite case...

Chapter 14 – Case 4: A dead pianist's last wish…Part 4

Shinomiya Kaori observed Taniyama Mai from her hidden spot behind a pillar that stood in between the music room hallway and the stairway. The more she thought about the reason the brunette had provided her yesterday afternoon in the music room when the girl stumbled in on her, the fishier it seems to her. First of all, if her memory served her correctly…Taniyama Mai had been holding on to a temperature recording board that afternoon.

If everything the brunette told her was true, then why on earth was there a need to take down temperatures of the rooms within the estate for a filming of a documentary or sort? The only situation that involved the necessity of taking temperature and filming would be for a paranormal investigation scenario. At least, that was the only plausible reason that Shinomiya Kaori could think of. So did her uncle called in some paranormal investigation in to check things out here in this house?

Yes, most likely that would be the case. Shinomiya Kaori gathered…she was no fool; obviously her behaviour over the past few days was freaking her uncle out. Looks like she should informed a certain ghost companion of hers to tone down a little while taking control of her body. The last thing she required now was to have an exorcism conducted on her; the feeling of being sprinkled by holy water was not exactly 'welcomed' to her. Then again, not that she enjoyed the feeling of having to share a body with a ghost either…but at least; she had already established an agreement with the said ghost inhabiting her body.

Initially, she was contemplating on informing the brunette of the situation herself and to get these investigators to stop complicating matters and leave everything aside for her to handle. She was after all, a graduate from the Psychic Stream of Salem Academy. Granted, conducting a séance wasn't on her routine list and her main forte area in psychic field actually lies in Psychometry. Still, her medium ability was not to be underestimated either. Besides, it was not as if she was incapable of handling a séance once in a while time.

Nevertheless, the idea of broaching the subject outright with Taniyama Mai was forced to be discarded once she noticed the brunette's obvious lack of recognition upon sighting her in the music room. Not only that, the brunette had even attempted to feed her some crappy reasons for the outsiders presence in the estate…and if it were not for the fact that she had actually caught sight of the temperature recording board, she might have actually taken Mai's words for it.

With a shake of head, Shinomiya Kaori sighed as she made a move to head upstairs after the figure of Taniyama Mai disappeared down the stairway that led to her family basement where she guessed was used as a investigation base for the group of investigators.

Taniyama Mai burst into the basement of the client's house noisily, successfully in her attempt to gain every member's attention onto her.

"Mai-chan…?" The monk of Mt. Koya cocked his head slightly to the side as he regarded the brunette with a quizzical look apparent in his eyes.

"Mai, what are you doing back down here? I thought you said you wish to retire early?" Ayako questioned.

"Well…I was thinking of surfing the web for a while first, when I chanced upon something that I thought you people should be informed of…so…" Mai responded sheepishly, before beckoning for everyone to take a look at her laptop screen.

"Isn't that Salem Academy's official website? What's so special up there that you wanted us all to be informed of?" Takigawa Houshou inquired, still not getting it.

Mai rolled her eyes and replied. "Take a close look at the column by the left side of the page, under the graduating year 2007. Did you notice the name Shinomiya Kaori up there?"

"Um…yeah, so what's so special about this Shinomiya Kaori?" The monk asked.

"Well duh…Shinomiya Kaori is the niece of our client, Shinomiya Mihato. That, and the fact that this particular list of honorary students was from the Psychic Faculty of the school…Now do you see my point already?" Mai stated flatly.

"Oh…" The light of recognition dawns in on the monk as he echoed weakly.

"Yes, oh…" Mai rolled her eyes at the monk, and shifted her gaze to the other SPR members who have something to say.

"So our client's niece's a psychic, and was a graduate from Mai's old school in the US…anyone want to take a guess on the powers of this Shinomiya Kaori?" Matsuzaki Ayako piped up then.

"…" Upon the end of the self-claimed priestess words, everyone in the room simply rolled their eyes and turned their attention back to their initial task at hand.

"There's no need to guess, I'll just pay her a visit tomorrow morning." Mai said, she had gotten the hint that Shinomiya Kaori might have known her on a personal scale before and hence the possibility of her informing Melissa, the ghost to communicate with her through the use of dreams.

Day 3

Shinomiya Kaori was once again in the music room playing away on the grand piano when Mai entered the music room on the third day of SPR investigation work on site. It seems like the former was expecting her to drop by for a visit, as the music stopped almost immediately upon her entry into the room.

"Good morning, I assume you have questions for me?" Shinomiya Kaori started, taking the initiative to strike up a conversation between them.

"Well…yes, I do have some questions that I hope you could answer." Mai responded, regarding the niece of their client with unwavering gaze.

"Likewise, I have some questions of my own that I wish for you to shed some light onto." Shinomiya Kaori said, gesturing towards the sofa couch situated in the far left corner of the room for Mai to take a seat and make her-self comfortable.

"Right, first of all…last night I was surfing the website of Salem Academy aimlessly when I chanced upon your name on the honorary ranking chart under the Psychics Faculty…so I would like to ask which psychic ability you possess." Mai started hesitantly, inwardly wincing at how awkward this whole situation was. If her gut instincts of Shinomiya Kaori knowing her on personal scale were right, this question would sure strike the former as an odd thing for her to be asking.

"…You know what, why don't you enlighten me on just what exactly had happened to you that resulted in your amnesia situation?" Shinomiya Kaori arched an eyebrow up in expectation as she voiced her doubt across.

Taniyama Mai who had been uneasy since earlier this morning completely froze for a minute, before recovering her ability to react. Her first act was to do a face-palm and then followed by letting out a groan of dread.

"So you did know me from before…"

"Well…?" Shinomiya Kaori prompted, still waiting for Mai to answer her previous question on the memory loss issue.

"I wouldn't say I'm suffering from amnesia, because I do have my memories for the past eighteen years. All I can say is that…there's a block in a portion of my memory, specifically relating to events that took place around three years ago. I can remember the important events that took place in that year with no problem, but when it comes down to specific details…I'm afraid I'm at a loss here. The memories during that period of time were all jumbled up, so I guess I should apologized for not being able to recognize you at first glance. And before you ask, I had no idea how my memories ended up in such a condition…" Mai said, explaining the reason behind her lack of recognition of the girl when they had met up in this very room on the first day of the SPR investigation.

"I see…okay, to answer your previous question. My main forte area or rather my specialization was in the fields of psychometry but I'm also an adequate medium. I can sense and detect ghosts' presence if I want to; my spiritual level weren't exactly those high notches ones… so I usually won't bother to 'look' for their specific presence in a place. Unless, I had the misfortune to touch an object in which the ghost was actually haunting…" Shinomiya Kaori said, while Mai flicked her gaze automatically to the piano's direction.

"Oh…okay, so you've already established an agreement with that ghost haunting the piano?" Mai asked, despite having already gotten the notion from her earlier dream pertaining to that particular ghost.

"Yes, I promised to play her intended piece for my own impending competition so to finish off her last wish in order to let her move on." Kaori nodded in confirmation to the brunette's words.

"Ah…so that's the reason for the 'Moonlight Sonata'…" Mai commented, the light of realization dawning in on her now.

"So are you going to let her take control of your body on the actual day of competition in order to let her finish off her unfinished business or sort?" Mai asked, sounding quite curious to know Kaori's intention.

"Well…that's what I promised her, but only on the day of competition it-self and also I limited the number of times in which she could seize control of my body to practice for the piece to once a day, no more than that." Kaori said in a firm tone of voice.

"…And she obeyed?" Mai inquired, rather sceptically.

"She has no choice but to obey, especially with you people around. I threaten to have her exorcise if she overstep her boundaries." Shinomiya Kaori claimed.

"Very cunning of you to do that…" Mai commented then, shaking her head at the former words.

Shinomiya Kaori's response to Mai's comment was a mere shrug of the shoulders, while Mai lingered on for a little while longer to chat about something else outside of the case. Specifically, Mai had inquired the former on the circumstances that led to their knowing one another. Shinomiya Kaori had responded that they were working together on a joint-project between the school's different faculties, Mai was not told of the specifics aside from the fact that it was supposed to be a reception session to welcome some guests from the Britain side.

"It wouldn't by chance have anything to do with the BSPR, was it?" Mai felt it in her to ask, the moment she heard the term 'Britain'…this was the first thing that sprang forth to her mind.

"I think so, but I can't remember exactly. Sorry, it's been ages already… but I do remember there's a very nice and good looking guy from that group of visitors." Shinomiya Kaori said, while Mai sweat dropped and thought – it definitely had something to do with BSPR and Gene…

"Right, I better get going…I still need to fill my co-workers in on the information which I've gotten from you. Speaking of which, do you still want us to hang around here until the competition day or…?" Mai started, making a move to stand and leave the place only to turn and asked before stepping out from the door.

"Although, I have things under control on my side… but you guys are welcome to stay on if you people wants to."

"Okay…I'll be sure to pass the message along to my boss, see you later then." With that, the brunette excused herself from Kaori's Company and headed down towards the basement where the investigation base was being situated.

In the end, Naru decided to stay and observed the situation for another day before packing up and go. Before leaving the place, Naru assured the client that they will be there on the competition day to supervise the situation and to ensure that the ghost had moved on to its afterlife by the end of the event.

On the day of the competition, only John, Lin, Naru and Mai turn up for the event. John was asked to be present for the event in case something went wrong, and the ghost refuses to move on after having her last wish before dying fulfilled.

"So are you ready?" Mai inquired, once she met up with Shinomiya Kaori minutes before the former was scheduled to be on stage for the performance.

"Yes, I'm always ready for a show… and I do try not to think about the outcome every time I do something like that." The elder girl responded before making her way backstage to join the rest of the performers whom are waiting in line for their turn to be called on.

'_Melissa, do remember your part of the bargain.'_ Shinomiya Kaori kindly reminded as she allowed the ghost inhabiting her to take over prior to her moving out from backstage to the front where the piano was situated.

'_Of course..._' The voice of the ghost sounded in Kaori's mind, before claiming all control of the body. Moments later, the tune of Beethoven's infamous 'Moonlight Sonata' was heard clearly throughout the event hall.

The four SPR members watched on in silent anticipation once the music piece comes to an end, while it may not be visible to the general public. The four of them could clearly see a faint glow of light surrounding the possessed person, before a white mist was plunge out from the person's body.

"Thank you." Shinomiya Kaori heard clearly before a warm golden light enveloped the white misty human apparition, and then the ghost-like figure of Melissa was no more.

Both Shinomiya Kaori and Mai were glad that the ghost had chosen to leave before the winner for the event was announced. They both knew with the ambitious nature of the ghost…and if Melissa had lingered on long enough to hear the winner's name. There might be high chance of the ghost not leaving at all…so all in all, they were quite relieved to find that the ghost of Melissa had stick to her end of the bargain, leaving upon the end of the competition piece being played.

With that, the case was considered closed for good and Mai hurried to exchange contact information with Shinomiya Kaori before leaving the event place with the SPR members. Although, she had no previous memories of how she had gotten to know Shinomiya Kaori…but there might be a lingering sense of the forgotten friendship lurking in the back of her mind, hence causing Mai's subconscious to make the decision to keep the girl around.

_Meanwhile in the astral plane that was surrounded by ever lasting darkness and wills o the wisps, a certain Davis twin was fretting. Two steps away lay an abandoned pocket size mirror that he had last used to communicate with his younger twin, Noll. It has been some time since he had shown himself in front of a certain brunette, and while he still guided Mai's dreams on routine basis…it seems like he had taken refuge in the shadows refusing to head outside of his comfort zone to meet the girl heads on. Instead, he had settled for pulling the strings from the background. _

_Taniyama Mai may not be real smart, but she was no fool either. The brunette had already sensed his reluctance to let certain things in on her, and that he was trying his best to wriggle out from any form of confrontation. He knew he was merely prolonging the inevitable, but still he could not help it. There was no need to doubt Mai's reaction upon finding out how he had died; the girl would break down for sure. Then again, he supposed he could not blame the girl…the feeling was bad enough upon his own twin who finds things out using psychometry. _

_Mai, on the other hand, had practically witnessed the whole situation happening in front of her very eyes just because of a certain psychotic stalker which she had had the misfortune to attract to her at some point of her life back in the US. That stalker of hers had started tailing her everywhere she goes while she was still in the US, and then later on even attempted to follow her back to Japan. Everywhere that she went, she would somehow cross path with that creepy guy stalker one way or another. _

_Mai eventually managed to evade that creep's detection by roping in one of her friends to pose as her by getting a ticket for Hokkaido whereas her real self head for Tokyo, Japan instead. Before her departure from US though, she had rang him up for help and he upon receiving the call had flew over to Japan and meet up with the girl as soon as possible. _

_Gene knew his death was no ordinary incident and it had nothing to do with his reputation of being Eugene Davis either. The so-called incident that ultimately caused his death was a set-up ploy to target Mai; it was a warning from that stalker to the brunette that she would never be able to escape from him. It had to be the case since it was too much to be considered as a coincidence for Mai to be around the vicinity when he was first rammed over by the approaching car, and then stashed into the car trunk before finally being dumped into the lake to drown to his death. _

_That creep had paid someone to do his dirty deed, and then make sure to have the brunette watch from the sideline. Before he fell unconscious he had heard the driver that rammed him down on the road muttering an apology for what he was going to be doing to him later. The rest he knew no more, since he was completely out of it then. By the time he came to, he was already choking under water and eventually was drowned to his death. _

_The next time he regain consciousness, he was already in the astral plane where he met up with the brunette again. However, when he heard Mai's address of him…he knew, something must have happen after his 'death' that eventually caused the brunette's memory loss. Though sadden by the fact that his friend had no longer remembered him, he was glad that Mai was alright and safe from harm, generally to say. _

_Not wanting to risk upsetting the girl, Gene dutifully played the role of the brunette's guide in dreams while pretending to be his younger twin. While there had been times and occasions which Gene was tempted to have his friend back__…__ the idea of wiping the cheerful smile off the brunette's face had him halted in his act._

_However, with the recent way of how Mai was interacting with him…he found himself worrying of what might happened if the girl were to remember the events leading up to his death. Even if Mai still show no signs of recalling these events yet, who was to say the same for sure that she won't be prompted into remembering once someone else accidentally let it slipped to her of how he actually died. The more Gene pondered on the issue, the more vexed it becomes for him. _

'_Damn…now I'm even feeling the onslaught of a migraine to come when I'm quite certain that ghosts aren't supposed to be suffering from migraine.'__ Eugene Davis thought with an exasperated sigh of breath. _

Date started: 8/3/2013

Date completed: 10/3/2013

P.S: I hope the last portion of this chapter managed to shed some light into what happen to Mai's memory being missing, and clued some of you in the actual extent of how Gene and Mai's relationship is like :P

Once again, please do read and review! : D


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